Birmingham, April 20th, 2022

383 is a digital product studio based in Birmingham, UK. They partner with the bold and the brave to transform businesses, from developing futureproof digital strategies, to defining and validating ideas, to creating industry-leading digital products. Their focus is on building the right thing, and building the thing right.

Karl Randay is the Head of Design at 383. In an interview with TIA, Randay went through the responsibilities of his role at the agency and described what makes 383 from the rest. He highlighted the importance of designing for human behavior and how inclusivity is currently a key aspect on design.

To kick things off please can you describe to us a little bit about your city and why it is a great place to work?

Birmingham has struggled to be taken seriously, but the design scene and local creative culture is incredible, especially with the Design Festival and local studios pulling together to shout about the location. If you were after a must-do experience it’s got to be the food. Nowhere else in the UK has such a diverse mix of incredible tastes from around the world. Go to the home of the Balti though, our Indian food is second only to India.

Could you explain to us briefly what’s your role as Head of Design at 383?

I’m responsible for our Human Centered Design processes and how the Design Team are the arbiters for the audience in everything we help to build. A lot of what I do is in equipping the team to be able to do their best work, elevating the idea of design with our clients so that we have the right platform to do the work we need to do, have the difficult conversations and really champion the right experience.

What does it mean for 383 to make great stuff?

I originally got interested in design due to the power of it in communicating across boundaries, and over the years this has grown to really encompass the need to make a difference for everyday people. 383 stands by its vision to make truly useful products and services that help people get things done, and it’s incredibly humbling to have had the opportunity to genuinely make a difference in some of the things we’ve made for our clients.

Working with the right agency can be a valuable partnership. What attributes do you want people to associate your 383 with?

383 is dedicated to building the right thing, and building it right. For us we want to be associated with considering the balance between the business vision and what its audience is trying to achieve, tackling frictions and creating a truly useful partnership to collaborate on making really great things. We want to be valued for our honesty, our bravery and ambition, while being empathetic to everyday people and pragmatic in the art of the possible.

In your opinion, what’s the most important factor that leads companies to create successful overseas experiences and to engage at a global scale?

Communication is absolutely key, as is transparency and trust. The time difference can be a real issue, but ensuring you put the right people who have the same values into the mix and trust them, then great things can happen. Scale comes from not making things too complicated. The best manager I ever had always told me “simplify everything” and he was right. At the heart of everything there really needs to be simplicity and basic context for what needs to be done.

Every experience has an emotional component. What is your approach to design positive emotions to keep users happy and engaged?

Designing for human behavior is critical, so understanding where emotions play a part in the journey, as well as how we make decisions; system 1 and system 2 thinking and our subconscious biases make a tremendous difference to how we interact with things. Instilling a pleasurable experience comes down to understanding your audience and their goals, but also the obstacles in the way and how you can use design and nuance to maneuver them through to the right outcomes.

Tell us about a recent project you’ve worked on that you’re proud of. What particularly brought out the best in you?

It’s probably a few years old now, but one project that always stands out for me is a piece of research and service design we did for Nuffield Health. As a healthcare provider they were keen to explore ways in which they could be more accessible, supporting the NHS and what can be incredibly stressful moments for people. Using anxiety as a prioritizing factor in how we researched, analyzed and designed solutions was a massive aha moment for me. I’ve always had an interest in cognitive science, but being able to utilize it making useful things that could have such a profound impact on people in difficult situations was incredibly humbling.

Accessibility can be difficult to acknowledge, how do you ensure that your clients understand what you are recommending and all users are considered during projects?

For me accessibility is just part of a larger consideration on the impact of design we should be considering these days. Inclusivity is a really important issue facing design. We’re designing things for a massively diverse audience, which means we should be involving the same diverse group of people in how we design these things. For us we’re ensuring we’re aware of all of the cultural and accessibility issues and requirements facing us right at the start of the project, and that we’re engaging directly with the audience in our research to learn first-hand what their needs are and how they can play a part in the process.

Smart team drives agency growth. What’s your approach to hiring?

Our culture is really important, but it’s driven by people who share the same values and considerations for making useful things for real people. Our hiring process isn’t nearly as overbearing and challenging as the likes of Google, but we spend time connecting and getting to know a candidate before we work to get a sense for what their career goals are and the value they see themselves bringing. It’s just as important to ensure you can provide a great fit for a candidate as they are able to do the role, as this always brings out the best in people and makes them feel valued. We’re proud of not molding people to 383 but the other way around, so we’ve assimilated some incredible abilities from the people who’ve worked here over the years.

How can leadership create and then cultivate an inclusive workplace?

We have to ensure we’re providing the ability for everyone to be a part of the business, and certainly having a hybrid work culture massively helps with this. We already have a fairly diverse workforce, built up of people from very different cultural backgrounds and broad sense of identity. We’ve never shied away from this and embrace it as much as possible.

Fostering employees’ personal projects is important. Could you name any favorites?

We’ve got people who run lino-print shops on Etsy, who design and produce their own board games, who produce music and play in bands. Side projects at 383 are massively diverse and refreshingly have very little to do with what we do for the studio. I like to think this is because we’re really well challenged by what we do, but I actually think it’s because we’re all super geeks and just love creative variety in everything we do.

When looking at the technological landscape today, what makes you think “wow”?

It’s not the metaverse or NFTs for sure. I find bandwagons like this take a lot away from genuinely impressive technology that does a lot more for us as a species. I’m a total space geek, so everything happening now with the new space race is fantastic to watch, from the work SpaceX are putting into getting us practically to Mars to the capabilities of the James Webb telescope, it’s like being a kid again.

How would you describe the digital industry in Birmingham compared to other major cities?

I think because Birmingham has always been seen as a bit of an underdog, we’ve worked a lot harder to create something that’s persistent, that lasts and actually unites competitors in the region. We’re the home of industry, of graft and Back Sabbath! We’re not afraid of hard work, but we’re not going to showboat or boast about it either. It’s a really honest and genuine culture in the city.

What skill has served you best in your design career?

Curiosity, coupled with a good dose of humility. It’s easy as a designer to think your answer is the only answer and get fiercely protective of the thing that you’ve created. For me it’s a team sport and involving different perspectives has almost always resulted in better solutions. I also studied traditional typography as an undergrad, to a high level of mathematical detail, which has always really helped understand legibility and appreciate how we absorb information.

Is there an area of design you’ve yet to tackle but would like to?

I’ve always wanted to design the UI for something complex that requires a high level of user input, like the controls on the SpaceX Dragon, or next generation aircraft cockpit. Growing up watching sci-fi movies I always gravitated towards the interfaces. I was also fascinated by KITT in Knight Rider as a kid and would always build out my own life size versions. Insert suitable follicle challenged Hasselhof joke here.

From your personal standpoint, what global issues are you most passionate about and why?

Dammit we have so many. The environment and global warming is a big one though, and one shared across 383 as a business too. We’ve been involved with a number of environmental programs to help do what we can as a business, and it’s these sorts of extra-curricular involvements and pro-bono work that drives people to us.

Please share a fun-fact that not many people know about you

I’ve had my handwriting stolen by The Prodigy. I clearly remember walking into HMV back in the day, rifling through the CDs and clocking it. It got used to make all sorts of rings and playing cards too, you can see it in videos and promo shots. It was all because of a font I had designed that had been borrowed by a friend, who ended up working for their record label. It was worth far more to me as a cool story than a legal case though.

Thanks Karl!

> Learn more about 383 here

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