Episode 38: Surfacing Judy Ma
In this episode of Surfacing, Lisa Welchman and Andy Vitale talk to Design Leader, Judy Ma. Judy reveals her leadership philosophy, the guidance she gives up-and-coming designers, and how her background in industrial design influences her approach to User Experience Design.
Judy Ma pioneers the role of design within global healthcare and telecommunication corporations, evolving it from a traditional functional design approach to a human-centered approach and experience-driven decision-making that integrates high-quality design and technology.
As Design Director at 3M Health Care, her recent challenge has been reinventing 3M's physical product solutions to create value in the digital age. Accelerating the pace of innovation through championing a human-centered approach to healthcare technology, leading enterprise-level digital transformation, and delivering distinctive brand experiences for customers and communities that 3M serves around the world.
Before joining 3M, Judy led the UX team at Motorola and has delivered over 90 products in production for more than 100 million users worldwide. She is a "Distinguished Innovator," representing Motorola's top 2% of technology leaders. Judy is recognized as a woman holding the most patents in Motorola.
Transcript
Lisa Welchman:
I am really excited about this conversation with Judy Ma. It was really, really fun and interesting. What were some of the big takeaways for you, Andy?
Andy Vitale:
I mean, having worked with Judy in the past, it's just interesting to see how her journeys progressed at 3M since I was there. Going from the first UX designer at 3M, I was actually the second, to where she's at now leading this team that's focused on healthcare. So, hearing that journey, hearing her background about working on cars and phones, through industrial design and where she's at now, to even some of the takeaways of things that she wishes she told her younger self. There's a lot of nuggets in there.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah. I think that what really stood out for me in this particular conversation was Judy's emphasis on the team. It's very seldom that we talk to someone who is committed to a company and committed to team and committed to mentoring the people, really pushing people to become better at their craft, better at their vocation. And that really stood out to me. I mean, obviously everyone we've interviewed before, people come back and get me. Everyone we interview is committed, but I think that was really an outstanding mark with her. So, I hope that everybody really enjoys this conversation as much as Andy and I did.
Andy Vitale:
Hey, Judy. Welcome. Really excited to have you on the show. We haven't really connected much in a few years. So, the question that we've been asking everyone, and knowing your background and all of the things that you've done, we'll definitely get into that. But I'm really curious for you to tell us about your current role and some of the unique aspects of your journey that led you to it.
Judy Ma:
Okay. Sounds good. So, yeah. First of all, thank you for having me in this show. So happy to see you. It's been a while. So, yeah. I am heading up user experience design at 3M Healthcare Business Group. A lot of people knowing 3M, making Post-it notes. Yes. We do. And that's so lovely. But, we also do make a lot of things that people are not really aware of. So we make 60,000 products. My responsibility is to sustain the products that not actually-
Lisa Welchman:
Oh, my God! Did you say 60,000 products?
Judy Ma:
Exactly. Yes.
Lisa Welchman:
That's ridiculous. There should be a law-
Judy Ma:
Right. Exactly. You can be never away from 3M product, more than three meters. That's what people used to say before COVID. Now, we're making masks and everybody uses phone. So, basically we're close to three centimeters. So you can never away from 3M's product. So, my products actually coming from not the traditional factory. Most of time it is a digital applications as in a product plus the service, the ecosystem. That covers broader areas in the healthcare space. So, healthcare is a lot to juggle with the cost. Costs kept rising, you pay more, but how do you feel? You actually get less. So, how we are addressing that part of the revenue cycle, because the healthcare challenges is not only coming to the patients. Also, it is provider side too, because hospitals' margin is getting thinner and thinner. Because of that, they have to cut corners. So you pay more, but you do get less.
So our address, our task is to create the data-driven analytics to help hospitals to make sure that they can actually do the better job and predict a certain bad episode before that happens, so they can address timely manner. Basically, if they save more money, now they don't have to cut corners, but they can deliver the better patient outcomes. From that to all of the context in the digital orthodontic business. A lot of people do not know that 3M is also do have digital orthodontist. Basically, what we do is creating the digital workflow for make sure that these people doing the braces and then making sure that their teeth are pretty. Accurately created the perfect smile. That's what we do.
And it is hard to do, not only the physical sense. So while we have developed the digital workflow to have the shorter time that they need to get it done, of this orthodontic procedures, and then using the artificial intelligence to provide the right context. So, just at the high level, what we do is very non-traditional, but super important for everybody's life and a lot to do in the healthcare space, which is super critical.
Lisa Welchman:
How did you get into this? It's all really fascinating. I mean, usually we're talking to people who are spending most of their time designing websites, building websites, apps, mobile apps things. And I'm not saying that you're not doing that, but it's much, much more diverse. How did you get into this area? What led you to this?
Judy Ma:
Sure. So, I mean, that's a great question. So, I'm an industry designer by trade. So back then, when I started working 20 years ago plus, I'm old! So, UX wasn't even a job and I started my career as a car designer, believe it or not. And car design was fun, from school, at the school, is the best thing you can ever do. But once you start working, I quickly, let me realized that car design involves so many of designers. Basically, everybody get a little portion. So, I get to design the steering wheel, how awesome the steering wheel is!
Lisa Welchman:
But then you saw the rest of the car.
Judy Ma:
Exactly. Yes. Well, I drew 3,000 pages of sketches every day. And then after work, everybody I see someone's face is all steering wheel. So, okay. It was cool at school, but I didn't get to design the entire car and that's the things that I wanted to do, everything start to finish. So, at that time, Motorola was a big. So as I said, I'm an old person, so Motorola was doing really well with you making StarTAC, those phones that actually foldable. And before smartphone came out to the market, smartphone actually came out before 2000, so, '90s. People see that, okay, 2007 Apple iPhone came out. So, all the thing has accelerate big time. But, prior to that, smartphone was exist. And, I mean, I saw that there's interesting things that I want to get into this space, something small, but I can do a lot more, maybe if I can start and finish whole stuff.
So, I changed my job from the car design to phone designer. And more so, the later down the road, I changed it to the UX design. But back then UX wasn't even a job, and wasn't even really the major that you can learn from school. So, not [inaudible 00:07:51] hard party world. You just learn at the job what you are performing. And, I was lucky enough to get a job in the CTO, so Chief Technology Officer, to work on using the design to translate this technology into something tangible, business value. And that doesn't really include a lot of it. Of course the physical parts is important, but I have to do the parts that beyond the physical. And that is more like end-to-end experiences, and then how we can actually connect the technology.
We see this thing so often that awesome technology is looking for customers. That's not what we should do. So, bring the right context. And, you're addressing human-centered approach through addressing that. How can you leverage a technology to solve the biggest challenges that human is experiencing? And with that, that was a great. So, mobile phone is awesome and you get to work on really high tech, so that is cool. But, at the same time, you don't really have to change a mobile phone every six months. But the company needs to make money. So, that was my little downside, that I want to work in the space that make the differences. I mean, mobile phone industry make differences, but they get to spend with more money, play a faster game and change the little photo editing. I mean, that doesn't really fulfill my desire to make impact in the world. So, 3M came to me 10 years ago and they said, "Okay. We didn't have a UX so you come in as a UX person. So build a UX."
So, was there actually awesome task, that healthcare space that I always interested in getting in there, because my job is more than delivering awesome design for company making the money. At the same time, actually help people. So there's a great opportunity for me. And then bring the UX to 3M, because since I was working in Motorola, 3M was the one of our vendor. So I know how 3M makes adhesive for the phones, those things. But you can actually do way more than that, that I can come in here to really bring the user experience to the whole company. And actually back then, 3M thought that okay, we got check mark of the UX, because we got Judy and that we are good now. But, you know what? That's not true. So, I was able to convince the leadership to hire UX, and then bring the UX to the heart of 3M, how we are approaching the problem. And Andy was actually one of my first hires. So, I feel so proud-
Lisa Welchman:
That's right. Yeah.
Judy Ma:
[inaudible 00:10:45] Growing the team and bring the UX. So that's what I've been doing for the last 10 years. Yeah.
Lisa Welchman:
That's so interesting. And you already talked about your industrial design background. And, do you have any other skills outside of UX and design and industrial design, that you think really add value in your work? Or, are you just all UX, all the time?
Judy Ma:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I know. I mean, this can be so boring. So-
Lisa Welchman:
No. Not boring. Dedicated is another way of saying it. Dedicated.
Judy Ma:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You said it, put it really nice way. I don't know. I mean, you are human, right? So you are more than just you, what you do. I call this as a ecosystem, thinking at work. So whatever we are designing, we have to make sure that the person and what is the surrounding? What are the peoples that they're dealing with? Services, solutions that they need to utilize it? What kind of data they need to get as channels that they need to connect to get their job done.
So, same thing for me. UX and their work is important, but I'm a mother of two. My kids? Both are actually, they wanted to become a doctor, the medical doctor. So, working in healthcare is not just to my own [inaudible 00:12:09], "Okay. I want to make an impact in the healthcare space, but I also do want to make sure that the life for this medicine and doctors get better in the future." Because, knowing the fact that they spend so much time in doing the admin task and those charting work that, believe it or not, they spend three to five hours every time, every day, after patient left from the hospital. So, that kind of work, that technology and digital solutions can actually help them to minimize this kind of work that they should not do. They should spend more time where they connect with the patients.
Lisa Welchman:
Do they influence you? When you see them work, do you get influenced by them? It's interesting, because I have a son who's 27 now and even though I've been working with the web since he was born, literally since he was born, it's really humbling to see how fluid he is with the technology and some of the insights that he actually brings to me. And some of the things that I notice about how he uses technology versus what I do. So do you find that inspiring, when you're hanging out with them?
Judy Ma:
Definitely. Yes. So, I mean, they are different, because in knowing the fact that I like to write on paper. Maybe I don't usually go back and read it-
Lisa Welchman:
No. Not paper. Post-it notes.
Judy Ma:
Post-it notes.
Andy Vitale:
And draw the most perfect circles I've ever seen.
Judy Ma:
Oh, right. I'm a car designer. I know how to sketch, so that is who I am. But these days, kids never write anything on paper. It's everything. And then my kids always just type be the voice. Voice can type much faster than you would try to type with your finger. So, how they're actually working and whatever they are trying to do is quite different than what I did. Like, when I was young ... I'm a Korean, so a lot of your Asian parents, you can imagine. "You can have two jobs, basically. Doctor or lawyer. [inaudible 00:14:16] So, you're going to be starving artist? Whatever that you call a design, I have no idea." I don't even try to reason with my parents that what I'm doing. Just hard for them to understand what it is.
So, yeah. I've been doing for over 20 years, but I'm still in that a space now. And, I see the lot of things are changing. You said what kind of a skill set do I have for me to be in my spot right now, is that, actually it's not a skills but more so on just the mindset. I think that mindset and about ... I picked the journey of Marie Claire as almost driving a car. So, okay. I love car. You can imagine that, right?
Lisa Welchman:
Especially the steering wheel.
Judy Ma:
Yeah. But, you are holding the steering wheel. What you have to do with driving a car, you have to look front. Front. Where am I going? So, I can't actually see where I'm going and then what is in the horizon coming up. It is not so difficult to predict what is coming in the horizon, knowing about all the technology trends, what is the people trends? I mean, of course, we are human, you cannot predict, but you get some idea about that.
And then you have to see your back mirror, to see who's coming so close to you? The competitors are not necessarily you're usual suspects. These day, healthcare compete with, those big giants about. Amazon has health, and then Google has that, Apple has that. Those are not traditional competitors. And it's small. There's a startup coming up so fast as well. So, it is quite different and you have to see those. And then, who's next to you, like your blind spot? You constantly have to check the blind spot. So, when I moving the any parts from the car design to mobile phone to healthcare, I saw those are coming. And you have to see what are the gaps in the marketplace. So, okay. Right now the smartphone is getting big. And then I saw the gaps in the marketplace could be the interaction, how people are actually utilizing this technology and then what they're going to do with it. That's actually more important than actually physical design by itself. I love home giving, but maybe good for me to look into it and you have to do the head of time, before it's too late.
And the same thing for the healthcare, because healthcare is the one sector that technology improves, but price kept going up. So, anything you buy, the 4K TV? I mean, five years ago you probably spend a fortune of it, but how much do you have to pay now? If things are getting cheaper in consumer space or any other space ... ? So, that means healthcare technology kept improving and that's the part that as a designer can do something about it, to reduce the cost.
So I saw the big potential there. And also. Same time, it is doesn't matter what economic conditions you are having it, people actually do get sick and they need help. So, that's a part that maybe I want to see the little bit longer term in my career and where I'm going. So, it's a constantly driving, looking at the steering wheel, where I'm going. I have to make a turn but make sure that who's in the blind spot? Where I'm going [inaudible 00:18:07]. Will I have enough gas to get there? Where do I need to make a turn to grasp on my next skillset? Is it required for me to move to the next level?
Andy Vitale:
As you look at that ecosystem and the things that are being done as healthcare costs rise, technology costs come down, there's a lot of challenges right now with digital experiences, not just ... And, physical too. Just thinking, what can someone in your position do to help shift some of the more negative dynamics? And also, amplify the positive ones?
Judy Ma:
Sure. Digital challenges is a big one, big task. And then, you often feel like, "Okay. I don't have power to make changes." One of my mantra is that mantra I have to living the life, is that you never underestimate the power of one person. And, if you are a designer, believe it or not, you actually do have a lot of power on your hand then you never even imagined. It's possible. So, okay. It's a lot of digital challenges associated with it. This artificial intelligence, is it getting smarter. Actually, it's getting smarter, but not so smart too. It thinks that, okay, Siri's ... What do you think Siri's and Alexa's intelligent level compared to human? So, compared to human intelligence level. Maybe-
Lisa Welchman:
From a grade level? From age or grade?
Judy Ma:
Yeah. Maybe age.
Lisa Welchman:
Age. We'll say age [inaudible 00:19:44] because that cuts across cultures, because grades are different across cultures. Age wise, I want to think that ... I'm going to guess eight or nine years old. That's what I'm going to guess. Eight or nine years old.
Andy Vitale:
I'm going to guess mid-twenties.
Judy Ma:
Oh, wow! Wow! So, you gave a lot of just ... Okay, that they're very smart, must be? Your Siri must be different than my Siri. Okay. Actually, Siri's only four years old, the intelligence level. And Alexa is ... Best can go five years. So, just at this time you could say that AI that people know is up to six years of the brain power they have. I mean, it can be much smarter, because if they acquire more data, right? More data they get, they can predict better, but just they're not really quite there yet. There's a lot of ways that they can make it better. So, try to answer that question about what designer can do. You have a lot more power than you ever even guess that you have, meaning you need to bring the real human part to what you are designing for. Because often, yes, those AI engine requires data.
More data you feed to the engine, will come up with a better predictions. But you cannot just to fill the data, the sake of data. It is about the who you are serving. If you are creating the e-commerce site, who the end users are? who are those people that connect with them? So, like a human ecosystem. Whatever things that I do care in my home life, whatever things that I do care about my work life, those are not exactly the same. So, you have to see the bigger picture of the all of those dependencies and try to address the right needs. And more you are doing so, you can basically dehumanize the technology.
So, one example that I can give it to you, that my team is working to create the space and time for clinicians. So, when you go see doctor, what happened to you? You probably sitting in the doctor's that maybe operatory or the chair yourself, and doctor has to constantly look at the computer and then entering the information to electronic medical record. I mean, that is what the technology has brought at this time, because the doctor needs to enter the diagnosis informations. They need to capture any medications and so on. That is good, but is that interaction humanized? Like I am sitting in myself and then I'm looking at the doctor's back and doctor kept looking back to me. And always, there's not enough time for doctors to talk to me. Also, when I'm done with the appointment, doctor needs to spend, I said, three to five hours in charting and documentation work that they hate to do so. Because, they become a doctor by working so hard, study so hard, to get to the level to really serve patients, not doing the additional paperwork.
So designer here, we can using the AI as the engine to understand this conversation. So, what doctors are talking, what patient is talking. And we can automatically put the right context in the documentation for that. So, that means doctor doesn't have to spend extra time to do the documentations. And if something is missing there, which is crucial for the patient's outcomes and we can actually nudge it to the doctors, at that time. So, without having doctors wait too long and then you can fix that, any human errors. So that's the one example that maybe technology think we have to pay a lot of money for it, just so far away. But how everything is happen and captured and engine is designed, basically applying the human-centered approach. We do very rigorous design research to understand how people talk, and what terminologies they use.
What is their accent? I came from South Korea, so you might hear that I do have an accent. And a lot of the doctors actually they do have an accent as well. And how can we capture those part? And making sure that we are collecting the right informations, that's necessary for any given time. And that is pretty much not to do with the design. Sit side by side with the data scientist and how we can learn about the users and their complex ecosystem. Trying to find the right needs is necessary to the feed this engine. If you don't do it well, you could actually go into the big trap and difficult situation. You don't want to get into the bias. You don't want to get into this jeopardizing the security glitches and privacy issues. So, a lot of things that you have to take care of those. And that's super important and designers should do that.
Lisa Welchman:
So, one of the questions that we like to ask everybody is, Judy, is what are the things that you wish someone had told you when you were first starting out on your professional journey? Other than, "be a doctor."
Judy Ma:
Yeah. Exactly.
Lisa Welchman:
It sounds like your parents are probably very proud of their grandkids?
Judy Ma:
How do you know that?
Lisa Welchman:
Right. Of course.
Judy Ma:
I am the de facto, but they're the best.
Lisa Welchman:
It skipped a generation. That's okay. It's okay. You got there eventually.
Judy Ma:
Yeah. Yeah. So, it is all about PIE. P is a performance, and I is your image, and E is exposure. I wish when I start my career someone would tell me that. I usually tell the things to my team member all the time. So, it is more than just to ... Okay. I got hired as a designer. You have to work hard. Everybody's just working hard, but by working out by itself cannot get you the maybe part or level or whatever you wanted to call the success that you want to get out of it. It is more complex. It is more complex than just you, one-dimensional working hard. And also, it does change based on what kind of company you're working, because there's a different politics, different people working, how everything is getting decide on. Those are very different. And, as you start your career ... And, it doesn't matter, maybe you're already 10 years or 20 years in your career. It is still very, very important for you to think about the relationship and balance of this pie.
So, as you're moving up to the leadership role, maybe your performance is important, but performance part is a lot thing is driven by your team. So, how you can influence your team to deliver the best work. That probably is not going to take up to more than 50%, usually 30%. And 30% on image and exposure is 40%. Exposure is very, very important things. So, if we don't get to work on those top project doesn't matter to what level you are sitting in your organizations, you never get a chance to shine. And, unfortunately, exposure's not your actually control. Maybe you brought into the design organization that people don't really care that much, or they don't really know about it. And you get to work on something that, "Okay. You come here the last minute and make it look pretty." "I'm trying to make a difference, but whatever I said, it's just very hard to make it happen." It's maybe not your fault.
But, you have to really understand you have to create those exposure opportunities. If you don't have it, create some kind of pilot projects. When I came to 3M for the first time, I was the first UX designer. People have no clue about what is the UX. They do have a design, physical design and brand design, but not the user experience design. And I have to show that we do good work performance, and that we have to create the images that is important for to be recognized. This image is nothing to do with how good you look, but what kind of brand images that you want to create it. How do you want to be seen by? What do you want to be seen by with other people? So, that is important part.
There's no potential exposure opportunities that we can make our ourself shine. So, basically, I create this pilot project, and by connecting with a few champions in the organizations. And we said, "Okay. Give me three months and with X, Y, Z dollars. I will deliver this much work and give me a chance to actually share with you. It's very easy things that you could just ask. And, most of the time they like that, because not a whole lot of money and not a whole lot of effort from their side. But, okay. I can test the water to see what you could do for the business.
And, we did amazing delivery. I mean, one project that Andy came in and then worked for the first pilot project, he did awesome work. We were able to increase the productivity for our users in the healthcare space by 60%. And that was tremendous. Imagine not even using the heavy lifting on the healthcare technology, just the user-experience level at that front-end space. And we were able to increase the productivity for 60%, meaning that could be $200 million that, in a hospital, can save money, for deliver the better, the patient care. So, it is hard to say no.
And, if you deliver something like that success, you get popular. Now, not you. Your VP is. They're talking to the CEO's office. I mean, that's what I heard that they got. The whole team got so popular, everybody knew us. So, something that you have to constantly looking for, maybe not very hard to do. You have to find the opportunity for yourself, an opportunity for your team to shine. And, if we don't do it, you have no chance to be really shine. What can you do? But other people not recognizing or you never given a chance to do it, then there's no use. So, look out for yourself and look out for your team.
Andy Vitale:
Yeah. It's funny. As you mentioned PIE, I remember talking through that, through a lot of performance reviews and opportunities for growth. But, the interesting thing, or probably the biggest thing I take away from what you just said is, creating those opportunities to allow that team to shine, for the opportunity to amplify the work of the team in the right spot, so that those opportunities continue to open up for the team to do more and work on more things. And it's such an important thing to mention, on how we can do that, because as leaders, it's really important for us to create those moments for the team.
Lisa Welchman:
Lovely. Well, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate having this time with you. It's been fun to get to know you and talk to you, and find out about your doctor children.
Judy Ma:
No. Want to be a doctor. So, who knows? That's a long road.
Lisa Welchman:
Yeah. That is a very, very, very long, long road.
Judy Ma:
Yeah. So, yeah.
Lisa Welchman:
We'll see what happens, you never know. [inaudible 00:32:10] Yeah. Yeah. It's also, it's inspiring.
Judy Ma:
[inaudible 00:32:10] ... you want to be there. You have a really better life. He has no life. I mean, in order for them to become a doctor, they have to give up their life for the good 12 to 17 years of their young age. So, yeah.
Lisa Welchman:
We'll see.
Judy Ma:
Mm-hmm.
Andy Vitale:
So, Judy? I mean, what's the best way for people that listen to this to get in touch with you?
Judy Ma:
Yeah. LinkedIn is the best way. Yes. And then, happy to connect with the people. I love to mentor people. So, at this position, I might not ... I mean, you have to [inaudible 00:32:39] multiply of you, right? And, the more people, I said, "Look at Andy, how awesome he is now. He was one of my first hires in 10 years ago." So, so happy to see that. I want to have more of a people to come out and then grow and do better. That is still, I am so happy to just do that and excited to do.
Lisa Welchman:
Wonderful!
Andy Vitale:
Awesome. And, thank you, Judy. That means a lot.
Judy Ma:
Yeah.
Lisa Welchman:
Thanks for your time.
Judy Ma:
Thank you so much. So good seeing you. Yeah.
Andy Vitale:
Yeah. You too.
Judy Ma:
Take care.
Andy Vitale:
Bye.
Judy Ma:
Bye.