 Hi everybody, I'm Brittany from AJ&Smart. In this video today, I'm going to go through the top five industry standard tools that every UX and every product designer needs to know about. So in this video, I'm going to walk you through the five tools that here at AJ&Smart we use on a weekly, if not daily basis. I'm going to give you a brief overview of each tool. I'm going to actually tell you why we use these tools and kind of how we use them as well. Before I dive in, please feel free to add anything in the comments. Ask us questions about the tools we're using. If you want to know more information about a specific tool, we'd love to hear that and then we'll make a video. So we're going to go through Figma, real-time board, base camp, Slack, and Appear In. So being familiar with these tools, knowing a little bit about them, even just to start, is really going to set you up to be at sort of like the industry standard. First up is Figma. Now, Figma is a prototyping tool that we use at AJ&Smart on a weekly basis to build prototypes really quickly for our clients. Now, I want to just have a little disclaimer here that we did use to use Sketch. We used to always do our prototyping in Sketch, but what happened was we are prototyping so quickly and we have so many people, so many different designers working on the same prototype that it became kind of annoying to use Sketch, right? We had to like pass files to each other and we found that actually we needed some way to collaborate in real-time. So we decided to use Figma. One of the biggest reasons we obviously made the switch to Figma was that it actually allows for real-time collaboration. Really, really handy. Another reason why we chose Figma as our tool is because actually it has a similar interface to Sketch. So if you already know Sketch, you can really easily move into Figma without a lot of barrier to entry. Super obviously very intuitive, easy to use. So you can actually have a team library where you can have a set of UI interfaces that you can use on a regular basis. So another reason we use Figma is if we're working with a designer from the client side and they want to collaborate with us, they don't have to download any additional tools. They don't actually have to download Figma themselves. They can just use it in their browser. This is a huge, huge plus for us here at AJ & Smart. Okay, one setback obviously in Figma, if you're already using it, is that it doesn't have built-in animations. So that is a little bit annoying, but what we do to combat this is we actually take our files from Figma, import them into Marvel and then we're actually able to piece together a really nice looking prototype that actually feels real as well and uses all those kind of common interactions. So Figma for us we found is just the best prototyping software that we have come across. Next up we have Real Time Board. Alright, now Real Time Board is essentially a digital whiteboard. We use it a lot because we're often working with clients in the US or other time zones. So we need to work with them remotely. And this tool is the best we've found so far. So with Real Time Board, the biggest thing that we actually use it for, which sounds a little bit silly, is recording user feedback when we're running product tests. So it's such a great way to really quickly in real time write down basically all of the feedback from the users and post it up so that the client can kind of follow along and see what's going on in the tests. It's just so much easier. We used to be recording on post-its and then transferring that digitally and it just didn't really make a lot of sense. So now we're using Real Time Board. We're capturing feedback during user tests. If you're running any kind of remote work where you want to show something visually and have the client be able to see it and you guys can kind of have this nice collaborative environment, Real Time Board is definitely the way to go. Next up we're going to look into Appear In. Do you get it? Because I came out, like I appeared, I don't know where, I don't know if the joke landed to be honest, Callum. Tunisian. Tunisian. Tunisian. Okay, next up we have Appear In. So Appear In is basically just a software to have meetings remotely, right? So it's like Google Hangouts, but better. You send the link to someone, they click it and they appear in the meeting. Appear In is basically a very simple software that we use to record our user tests. We're often doing user tests remotely so it's super important that we record them so that we can actually go back, look through them, take a kind of a deeper look, get some more insights from them. With Appear In you can obviously record your meetings, which is what we do so that we're recording our user tests that are happening remotely. That's what we use it for. So we actually also use a program called Loom, and we use Appear In and Loom at the same time. Loom is kind of like our backup. It automatically uploads as it's recording, which is great. The thing is with Appear In is that you actually have to upload, like we'd have to take that and then upload it later for the client. So that's just a little bit of an extra step that's a bit annoying for us. So we use both of them, but we haven't actually found a perfect solution for this. So feel free to let us know below what you're using. Okay, number four is Basecamp. Ha! Right? I don't know why I did that. I just really love Basecamp. I mean Basecamp is a project management tool, so it's not anything earth-shattering. But what's so great about Basecamp is that you can basically have every email correspondence for a certain project all in one place. That's why we use it. We very rarely actually email each other or the client after a project has started. We kind of try to keep everything in Basecamp. So let me just pop this open. This was like an internal project that we were working on. So we kept everything, every correspondence between all team members within this Basecamp tool. And it's just so much easier when everything's in one place. What's really cool is if you're using Basecamp with your clients, it will actually, like all the messages will be sent to their email. So it will look as if they're getting a regular email and they can then also respond within their email. But it will then go to Basecamp. So it's actually a really cool workaround just in case you're working with, you know, a client that doesn't know how to use Basecamp or just, you know, you don't want to force them to use a new tool if they're already in their email. So that's how we do it. You can have tons of stuff. I don't know if we have any to-dos in this. No, of course, no to-dos. But like basically for us, we use a lot of the message board. So actually within Basecamp, all the projects are going to be kind of siloed in their own corners. So you're actually not having to browse through all like the whole platform to find a specific project. Every email, every message correspondence, document, to-do list, whatever, is all in one spot, one place. We can message all of the people. We can give kind of like an overview of what happened. We usually have a lot of photos and stuff that we toss in there for the client. So it's super nice for them as well visually. They can see how hard they worked. And also for you, if you're working with a client remotely, you can kind of send them photos along so they can feel like they're a part of the project. Basecamp is really, really excellent to use. Oh, that's nice. Nice photo of AJ and Smart. Aww, yeah. But yeah, highly recommended. Obviously we're big fans of Jason Freed as well. But Basecamp as a tool is super, super great for any kind of project work. Okay, I saved best for last, I have to say. Slack is one of our favorite tools. This is actually probably the tool we use the most across AJ and Smart. Basically we use it, it's a communication tool. It's a messaging tool for teams. Okay, so let's go into like, so basically this is kind of cool how we organize our Slack. So on the side here, you have all the channels that we've made. So this is all the channels within AJ and Smart. Some of them are locked. So this means that only certain people are allowed in them and some of them are completely, well, public within the company. And then of course you have your direct messages here. So those are all my teammates that I'm talking with all the time. What I love about what we've done with Slack is we have these channels like, for example, Interesting Links, where we actually post cool things that we've seen around in the tech space and the product space. Quite often actually on Instagram, I will do kind of like an overview, like a top three Interesting Links of the week. So definitely follow us on Instagram if you're not already. We go through that all the time. This isn't a public channel. Many people have asked for us to make it public, but this is an internal thing and it's just for us to kind of share with each other. We also have one called Lightning Demos. Now this is very design sprint specific, but basically these are all cool products in certain spaces that we kind of want to keep an eye on for what's going on in kind of the world of digital products. And then we also have a really nice channel called Love, which is one of my favorites. This is where we post like nice things that people have sent us, you know, notes, people saying that they like really love what we're doing, whatever. It kind of is like that feel good, warm, fuzzy channel. So Slack is an excellent tool to use. If you're corresponding really often with your teammates, it's just much more streamlined and it's really fun. Okay, so those are the top five industry standard tools that we use here at AJ & Smart on a weekly basis, if not daily basis. I know it was kind of a brief overview, but if there are any tools that we mentioned that you'd like us to do a little bit more of a deep dive into, let us know in the comments and we'll definitely make that happen. So if you liked this video, please do give it a like. If you haven't subscribed yet to our channel, we'd really love if you did. We're putting out weekly videos on product design, UX design, product strategy. We're talking about the tech world in general. It's a really fun place to be. So please subscribe. Also, we have an Instagram account. I don't know if you knew that already, but we do and we give actually a daily look at what's going on in our agency, what we're working on, what we're using, interesting links, all of these cool things. So definitely follow us there. And then of course, if you're not listening to our podcast yet, so that's actually hosted by Jonathan Courtney, our CEO and Jake Knapp. They actually talked to some of the biggest people in product design. For example, Julie Zoo, who's the VP of product at Facebook, Jason Freed, CEO of Basecamp. That's also a fun one. Thank you so much for watching. Have a wonderful day and we'll see you next time. If that one, I mean, if you're... Sorry, that one is... Sketch is very... Well, we can cut that part out. Okay. Another reason is... All right. Next up is up here in... Oh my God. This, yeah. Oh no, we're just... Oh my God, what is this? Let us know in the comments. Let's have a little conversation down there. You know? What's up? Right? Hey, everybody. What are you doing? Okay, so... I'm not going to say that. Sorry, that was a bit weird. So those are the top... I just spat. Did you see it? It was like... Okay. Yeah, exactly. Damn it, 4K. Okay. I've got them all in one try. That's pretty good.