Kristie

Can you tell me a bit about yourself, how you got into design and your current role?

Regis

Lovely, happy to do that. My name is Regis Bectarte and I'm currently the Head of Design at Natera, a biotech company in the Silicon Valley. I got into design by chance, while I was looking for a career path. Back in my late teens in France, I stumbled into what was called at the time, Communication and Information Science. It was mostly focused on public relations and enterprise communication, but a branch of it was starting to investigate multimedia creation. And that's what got me into the field, eventually, from multimedia creation, it branched off into psychology and eventually that also led me to do HCI.

Kristie

What are some of the toughest challenges you faced as a designer, and now as a leader?

Regis

I would say, coming from a non-design background. The first challenge was understanding what my earlier roles were all about. My first title was Human Factors Engineer, which in the 90's, made no sense - so understanding how the skill sets that I'd gained through education would serve me in tackling some of the challenges at work. Designing applications, understanding users, documenting and improving complex process, there was a gap between the two, so it took me a while to fill that gap. That stayed true throughout my career; with every new role, there is new expectation from the company, new needs, new problems. So, being able to diagnose, which ways I might be able to help the company move forward, which ways I might be able to support the teams, what is most needed to make any impact that aligns with what the company needs.

Kristie

Design isn't directly corelated to increased revenue. Is that hard to navigate when trying to add value to a business?

Regis

I'll take the example of playing pool. When you play pool, you can aim for direct shots and get the ball in the pouch. But you can also take an indirect shot, and that works just as well. So having that line of sight, on the sequence of events you are going to do to make an impact on revenue. It doesn't matter if it's direct or not, what matters is that you understand how the work you are doing is going to impact one of the metrics that matters to the company.

As designers, we have an eagerness to do a good job, produce a craft, good design and a good application. And sometimes we lose sight that we work for a business. If the businesses are not successful, then we won't have a job tomorrow. It's very relevant, especially in the current context of mass layoffs in the valley. And so separating arts and crafts from something that is part of a greater production capacity is ultimately going to allow companies to be successful.

As you move from an IC role to a leadership role, understanding what drives the business, what fuels the business, it's critical to help you position yourself and position your team in alignment with what matters to the business.

When I mentor young designers, there's a discussion around the core skill sets, which is of course, is critical. But, understanding what makes money to a company is also critical in understanding what piece you play.

Kristie

For you, was it a natural progression into leadership?

Regis

It's a good question, I don't think it came naturally, it came with being very candid from academia, and pursuing lofty goals of improving experience and understanding process. My concern with what drives the business came from reframing. You look at a feature, you look at a workflow, you look at the whole application, you look at the application within a portfolio, you look at the portfolio within a business. And soon enough, you look at the business within markets. With each of these stages, your frame of reference, increases the limits, until you're finally able to understand why a company is successful or is not successful within a given market.

Kristie

That is so true, well said. Are there any qualities you look for in a designer or admire?

Regis

What comes to mind almost immediately is curiosity. You've got to be curious about the environment, curious about the business, curious about better ways of doing your craft. And with that curiosity, comes an appetite, and a willingness to learn new things. In our business like many other tech businesses, we move fast, so what made a good designer 20 years ago, is probably not exactly what makes a good designer today. But if you look at the bigger characteristic, curiosity is key. A good expression is going back to Alice in Wonderland, when she follows the white rabbit and constantly asks why. And then the last quality, that is found a lot in Japan, is a care for the crafts. Design something that is polished, to meet a certain bar of quality that you should be proud to deliver.

So, curiosity, willingness to learn, and craftsmanship.

Kristie

And do you have a design philosophy that you live by?

Regis

I find myself always going back to "storytelling". The ability to tell the story of your users in a way that is relatable. Storytelling has the power of aligning everybody around a common understanding of reality. I would say, tell the story, work on the stories, imagine, understand how stories are told today. Give yourself the space to imagine what the stories could be like tomorrow, and then plot the paths that goes from one to the next.

Kristie

Storytelling has been around for centuries, hasn't it? Historically, people used to sit around a campfire and tell stories and has been a powerful thread in creating human connection.

Are there any books, podcasts or authors that have inspired you?

Regis

I would go back to the books that I was reading when I was studying and something I still think about today. It's an Austrian-American philosopher's name, Paul Waltzlawick, who in 60's and 70's, wrote extensively on communication and proposed along with other authors, a new way to think about communication. That is what has always stuck with me.

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