Stock photography | A easy solution for social media and blogging, a big problem for UX and brand?

Stock photography – the perfect solution for small business owners, bloggers, and marketers who need to create high-quality visual content without breaking the bank? 

With over 6 million photos and more added every day, you’ve got choice, but is it always the ideal solution?

Do you find yourself spending hours looking for the right photo?

Do you still have to heavily adapt the photo or illustration?

Do you love or loathe stock photography?

Do you even care?

Can one stock photo ruin your brand identity?

We talk about all these things and more.

Plus UX Tombola and finding a Spanish omelette under the English dishes section.

Saddle up, it’s time for more Faster Horses.

All these questions, and even ones you didn't want to know, ANSWERED!

Plus the off-topic tangents you love.

– – – – – – –

💎 Sign up for exclusive content: https://jubb.ly/ba4a52

👚 Offical products: https://www.paulwilshaw.com/shop

🎙 Apple: https://jubb.ly/c75cca
🎙 Spotify: https://jubb.ly/3d0d0a 

🎥 Watch: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4bV3uVwN3UqQeh8B9N8-xg

– – – – – – –

#Podcast #Design #Photography #Brand #Marketing #SocialMedia #TopTips #UX #UI

PEACE!

Produced by:
Paul Wilshaw
Nick Tomlinson
Mark Sutcliffe
James Medd
Anthony Jones
Chris Sutcliffe

Title music: James Medd


Sound effects from https://www.zapsplat.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:00

I was talking about your bins and Nick earlier. And like we were discussing kind of like when in in your adult life your conversation topics dramatically change when you get older and can like s sleep. I think we've kind of hit the sleep one. Bins is always a good one.

SPEAKER_02: 0:24

I think the bin the bins thing actually though is is like pretty uh pretty interesting when you get past the bins thing because it came up because I was like, can somebody please? So we've got a group chat between us two and friend of the show, James Med, um, who wrote the theme show. Thanks for that. Um and I sent a message and I was just like, can someone can one of you please create a skill for Alexa where I can tell her what the bins are and then and then I can ask her what the bins are in two months' time when I've forgotten what the bins are. And that the subject of bins is not that interesting, but one of the people in that group chat being savvy enough to create that skill, I think, is pretty interesting, and like a lot more interesting than the conversations I was having as a 20-year-old, which was like, where is my next drink coming from? And who is who is coming with me to the bar tonight this weekend?

SPEAKER_06: 1:24

That was about as far as it went. I'm definitely in it in a transition period though, where I'm having those conversations at the beginning of the evening, and when I've had said drink, I sit down to discuss things like bins or what what how to navigate the tumultuous world of deciding which pans to get because I need new pans, and and then uh and then which Best Buy have the audacity to charge you to see that what they think of the best pans, right? I think it's about£10 a month. It's like I'm not sure I'm that invested.

SPEAKER_02: 2:02

Not gonna be regularly buying pans. No, exactly. Yeah, to necessitate a£10 a month pan discovery fee.

SPEAKER_06: 2:11

No, to be fair to which they they do compare more things than just pans. But um true whether I'll get that use out of it.

unknown: 2:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 2:21

I I always worry about those as well, because they provide links out to all those things, and I wonder if they get it like a Oh, definitely get like affiliate link sort of thing.

SPEAKER_02: 2:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 2:31

I'm sure, you know, does the percentage of the affiliation link r uh you know bias the ranking of things?

SPEAKER_06: 2:39

I mean, there are some play I think typically you're meant to disclose that. Yeah, a sponsorship. Whoever's policing that, uh you know, I don't think it is.

SPEAKER_03: 2:49

But I think some deep terms and conditions perhaps everybody's accepted.

SPEAKER_06: 2:54

I came across an interesting version of this, which is the most extreme version I've seen. And I was looking for uh, you know, social media automatic posting stuff, so scheduling posts rather. Um, and there was this one article which read, you know, 17 softwares compared. There you go. Um trying to sort that out in a second. Um 17 softwares compared. Unbeknownst to me though, this article was written by a software provider for social media post scheduling, and the top one was theirs, and everything else was why the other 16 were not as good as theirs. And it's like not really the honest review I was looking for. Um so I ended up incidentally using a different article. I still don't have a a comparison, a um thing to go to, a social media sharing software to use, but you know, it's not that pressing a matter.

SPEAKER_02: 4:02

But you know which you've you've crossed one of the off the list at least. Basically, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 4:06

Well, to be honest, no, actually, because to again looking at the article, it they did seem to be fairly fairly better priced than all the other all the other options. It also makes you wonder have you claimed that this one's$100 and it gets you ten users because it's actually only ten dollars for one user, and you've kind of just jimmied the figures around slightly. Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 4:34

Yeah. When when do you need ten users on your social media account to manage that?

SPEAKER_06: 4:40

Me personally, I don't even have ten followers on my social media account. So it would be more a matter of yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 4:48

That's yeah, I'm sure you do. I'm sure you do. You'll have eleven at least after this.

SPEAKER_06: 4:54

Oh, thank you, Paul. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 4:56

Yeah, what's the handle, Mark?

SPEAKER_06: 4:59

It is uh Faberget Grenade. Um which is of course, in and of itself a bit of a lock system because it insinuates you know how to spell the word Faberget, which when I made the username I did not know how to spell Faberget.

SPEAKER_02: 5:17

So Yeah, you've got you've got to be fairly fairly adamant on following you if you're gonna like Google it first.

SPEAKER_06: 5:24

So I'm relying more on the algorithms of um Instagram to to advertise me. Which I don't think they have any kind of incentive to do so.

SPEAKER_02: 5:37

So not until you get the followers up, it's like a chicken egg situation.

SPEAKER_06: 5:43

Yeah, 22.

SPEAKER_02: 5:44

Yeah, yeah. Speaking of which, what's the subject today?

SPEAKER_06: 5:49

Nice segue. Yeah, we are talking about. I've completely forgotten. Paul, what are we talking about today?

SPEAKER_03: 5:57

This is slick, isn't it? Yeah. Uh we're talking about stock photography, uh, a design, a new X of stock photography. That's stock photography.

SPEAKER_06: 6:10

That's getting our S E M I S E O, is it? Is that yeah, yeah, yeah. What that is. You are Miso up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:18

Um I S E O N Meso's demo.

SPEAKER_06: 6:27

So yeah, stock photography opinions go. Do we need to do the opinion part?

SPEAKER_03: 6:32

Well, I think we need to roll the tiles before we do that. Oh, yeah, we thought we do. Yeah, yeah, that's let's do that bit first. Oh when you're ready. Here we go.

SPEAKER_02: 6:46

That's I'm filling the gaps with ad hoc.

SPEAKER_03: 6:51

Hello and welcome to Faster Horses. I'm one of your hosts, Paul Wilshaw. I've led design and development teams at Barclays and other well-known brands, won lots of awards and a few hackathons.

SPEAKER_02: 7:03

I'm Nick Tom Linson. I'm a digital illustrator and lead UX designer at a Manchester-based investment company.

SPEAKER_06: 7:10

And I'm Mark Sutcliffe, lead UX designer in the digital automation sphere.

SPEAKER_03: 7:15

Coming up, we'll be talking about design, user experience and technology, followed by UX Combola, where we pick apart the experience of a random product, object, service, or place, and a special advert from Mark Steele from Bolton Arcade.

SPEAKER_07: 7:33

Hello, thank you. I'm with the show.

SPEAKER_03: 7:36

If you want to be part of the show, you can send us questions on Twitter with the hashtag FasterHorsesPodcast. Now on to the show. I meant queuing it up really. Oh right, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 8:11

So that was that was our usual, you know, faster horses quality stamp that you know our our users have come to come to anticipate. Yeah, yeah. So stock photography.

SPEAKER_03: 8:24

What is stock photography? Should we explain that first?

SPEAKER_06: 8:28

Yeah, I suppose so. It's um because it's I was gonna say royalty-free, but typically it's not royalty-free, is it? Well it's no. Yeah, so typically. Go on. Uh but it's essentially photography being sold as a product um for use typically um in repeatable situations, uh, more for its commercial value over its artistic merit, I would argue. Um you can get some very slick looking stock stock photography out there, so maybe that's not a fair assessment. But yeah. What is stock photography?

SPEAKER_03: 9:07

There we go. I think you explained it, and I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_06: 9:11

My job done.

SPEAKER_03: 9:12

Um join us next week for another episode of I think yeah, stock photography for me is uh it's an easy kind of like and quick, you know, you can kind of fill up your website with some beautiful images straight away. But there's there's loads and loads of uh problems that you find. Like one of the things is kind of like uh it can take you like 30 minutes to find the right bloody stop photo. If you're lucky, uh if you're lucky, and then I was thinking like I could have actually gone out with a camera, not exactly the shiny processed it, come back and put it on the website, uh exactly in that time. So yeah, it's uh it's oh it's a weird one, isn't it? And then if you uh it depends on the search you're doing as well. Uh if you're doing like a a low-level search, kind of like business people, which is uh you get kind of like uh yeah, you get like the same twatish photos on there that uh all the time. You can see my love for stock photography coming out straight away.

SPEAKER_04: 10:29

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 10:31

And I've noticed as well there's there's a massive, massive problem with stock photography about the the the they've got loads of biases built into them uh straight away. So kind of like and I every time I scroll through some stock photography, my kind of like I did yeah, kind of my soul breaks in two, um, and you get the kind of like this uh two women at a laptop and a white man pointing at the screen, like instructing them exactly how to use technology, and you're thinking like when did somebody think that was acceptable to to even a take the photo and b kind of post that photo and then and then C use that photo all the time and bloody everywhere, and like I see it all, and it's like it's that classic pose of like some some woman on the keyboard and then a man going, look at this, this is how you should fucking do it.

SPEAKER_02: 11:39

They're always smiling at stuff as well, like whatever the whatever they're doing is always making them grin like a lunatic as well.

SPEAKER_03: 11:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like yeah, you're doing a doing a website for funeral hire, and you've got one man smiling at the screen going back.

SPEAKER_02: 11:56

Yeah, there's always that like really unconscious bias of like the person, it's uh it's always like you say, it's always a white guy like leading the conversation, oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 12:09

Or standing up giving the presentation and it looks like he's he's rocking the sales figures, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 12:16

Oh, or everybody's in awe of him, and uh yeah, it's kind of it goes back to you said it's the same Twatish person when you type in businessman or business person or you know, because a business person is anyone who owns or engages with a business. That's that's quite a diverse cast of cast of uh you know, a considerable portion of the global population actually. Yeah, yeah. And so how it's been reduced to one guy who's been poured into a suit is like in a in a we work office. Well, yeah, in some glass fronted office with uh post-it notes on the wall or or or a pie chart, heaven forbid it's anything other than a pie chart.

SPEAKER_01: 13:02

Um it's or it's always post-its, it's always a wall full of empty post-its.

SPEAKER_06: 13:10

And everyone just stood there looking at it like, hmm. Yes. With we I remember ideas, yes, business, business, business. It comes and I I think there's some interesting comparisons you can make to see how stock photos are arguably just completely irrelevant. They they might be good as placeholders, but I think you find anyone, any brand that is among the the top of their field in terms of advertising now, that could be I'm gonna, you know, it could be anything from sports brand like Nike and Hadidas or Coffee Brands. Um they aren't using stock photos at all. They're using specifically curated imagery, uh, usually video as well, actually, for that matter. Um, and I think actually, uh almost to contradict my own point, I've noticed that there's been a kind of resurgence of the use of this kind of stock imagery by major brands in those five-second YouTube adverts. Oh, yeah. Where you get some weird clickety-clack music, well, uh uh sound, that's apparently music, and um and a few stock photos and then a few words coming up on the screen, and then back to you know your playthrough of Elden Ring or whatever it is you're watching.

SPEAKER_02: 14:34

The video games are available.

SPEAKER_06: 14:38

But you know, why would you bother? So yeah, I think you know, there's a huge quality control conversation around stock photography, but I think it to bookend it at least on one end, you always find that a a a business that you know that takes its marketing very seriously will always generate their own content.

SPEAKER_02: 15:10

Well, yeah, it's um it's interesting that because it's it's it's sort of lowest common denominator in every single way, isn't it? Like first of all, most of these stock websites are uncurated, so it's just anyone can upload anything. I'm assuming there's some sort of barrier of entry. When you sign up as a photographer, there's I presume there's some sort of fee or something like that.

SPEAKER_03: 15:36

No, I don't think there is. Is there not?

SPEAKER_02: 15:38

So yeah, I mean, especially like sites like Unsplash, which is um like royalty-free photography, which we'll probably come to properly later. But yeah, like it largely it feels like these sites are are uncurated and just any old well, it's a spectrum of like actually pretty good stuff in terms of the ability of the photographer to take pictures and and use the camera, um, and then just any old dross that someone's thrown up and like stolen off other people as well, is it's another thing. Like seeing the same exactly the same images by two creators on there all the time. Um but I f I find it's always like it's like startups and small businesses that seem to use stock photography more than anyone else, because like you say, the big brands um can afford to take their own and and manage that as like an arm of their branding and uh larger execution of yeah, like the actual branding. Whereas everyone else who's working on a smaller budget seems to go straight for the eye stop thing. Or you know, if you don't have any ability yourself as a photographer, although you know, arguably that doesn't stop people either, does it?

SPEAKER_06: 16:53

Well, no, that's true. And I think you end up um multiplying the problem there because if you're trying to serve budget on um getting photography, then it may be that that person doesn't have much in terms of design acumen when they're putting forward the you know, filling their images on their website and stuff. Um and I think that means that you you you don't then have the opportunity to choose the best stock photography for that situation. You tend to grab any old thing. Um I actually think one of the things with stock photos is that they can be very misleading when they are actually being used to to advertise the product or service in question. Um and oh, cat, excuse me. Um thank you. One good example of this is um Just Eat. Oh, okay. So um as far as I can tell, on Just Eat, restaurants can upload any imagery for their um restaurant they want. But um but then you find that they're uploading the same stone-baked pizza for each kebab joint there is in town, and it's uh not necessarily a reliable source of um context.

SPEAKER_02: 18:18

The the funniest thing about that is when they really do take photographs of their own food. Yeah, exactly. There's one by me, and I wonder what like it's almost inspired me to order it, which is when um they've taken a picture of it's um like a large like tortilla that you just buy from the supermarket with chicken nuggets on it and then milted cheese on the top in one of those like brown polystyrene flip-top containers. And I'm like, well, on the one hand, um at least they've taken their own photography and they're honest, like, and conf and and you know, like they stand behind the food that make it. Um but on the other hand, I it's never in a million years to put that in my body.

SPEAKER_06: 19:01

And I feel very generous term, but yeah, yeah. Just a photograph of um a box of grey chips with with a bit of parsley on top because that's what they did on the stock photo.

SPEAKER_02: 19:16

Yeah. But yeah, um it's one of them, innit? I feel like it's a bit of a racket, to be honest. It's there was I was in one of my previous jobs, we really had no choice but but to use it because and to be fair, we did we had an in-house photographer and videographer in one of my old jobs, but for some reason it it wasn't deemed a suitable use of their time to actually go out and take photographs for it. Photography ph photographying. What was he photographing then? Well, nothing, which is why um it was a tumultuous relationship that then ended with them being sort of laid off, unfortunately. But um, you know, that was just down to the business. Yeah, was it the business that wasn't letting them go on? Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah. I mean they were they were fantastic at both photography and videography and you know filmmaking or whatever you want to call it. Yeah, they were amazing. But the business just had no interest in selling it or using it or well that's the other side of this thing.

SPEAKER_06: 20:18

I think we've talked about this, haven't we, in the past, when um when a business hires a creative and isn't willing to to put the resources behind them, especially when you've got an alternative like stock photography, which despite is a complete compromise on quality and thus you know will make the business look shit, is cheap and it's there, uh and it's a quick win. So yeah, I can understand that situation coming around.

SPEAKER_03: 20:49

Yeah, definitely. And I think I think it is it is easy. I think you know, and I and I get kind of like if you're like pressed for time, you've got tight deadlines, you know, and don't forget some of the well, most of the stuff is really ethereal now. Like if you ever do kind of like uh any any kind of like website for like security or something like that, it it's like uh how do you do that? And then you get this like horrible stuff photography of someone in a hoodie in a dark room typing, you know, trying to hack your passwords. Yeah, you know, I like if anyone is doing that straight away, your suspicion is 100% raised that they're doing something dodgy. Uh and I bet they don't do that. I bet they're just looking through your Facebook profile, getting your address off your photos you've shared off your house, uh, and putting it all together with your friends and where you're sharing your location. But that's how they're doing it, and not you know, wearing a hoodie and trying to kind of like freak that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_06: 21:56

They're probably dressed dressed quite similarly at this time of year, um, in their little costa coffee, get your internet for free as well.

SPEAKER_03: 22:03

So yeah, yeah, or we work, they're probably probably in a wheelboat.

SPEAKER_06: 22:07

They probably sat right next to you in that we work as you listen to this, looking at your Facebook over your shoulder and just uh just going, yeah, now I know where you live, love.

SPEAKER_03: 22:19

Anyway, I I digress from the point.

SPEAKER_06: 22:23

Quick, get a photo of them, and then you'll be able to sell it on a stock photo website. Who's laughing now, hoodie boy?

SPEAKER_03: 22:34

Um but I and I get it, there's a there's a lot of instances, you know, kind of like a lot of ethereal stuff and things like that. But that that is where you know, kind of like you've got to think slightly outside of the box, and you know, kind of like we we did talk about doing this show about inclusive uh illustration, which we will do in the future one, and uh you know, maybe maybe that's kind of like the solution to go forward with, but you know, and it's it's just question and validate that's if you're gonna use stock, just validate it first and validate it, and just don't go because that and I get it, you know, once you've been searching and and like once you go past the threshold of searching for even five minutes for a stock photo, you become uh really disengaged with what you're actually searching for in the first place, and you end up choosing any old shit that looks like about it'll do. So and but and I get it, it's it's hard. Um but you know, perhaps kind of like you know, test it out with somebody and check it with somebody else and and have a have a look and and maybe see what competitors are doing as well. Because if you uh if you put the same stock photo as they're using, then that instantly devalues your credibility as a brand and yeah, well, that's per se.

SPEAKER_02: 23:55

Yeah, that's the thing about Unsplash. So uh we've talked so far about like paid services, like uh I don't know whether to name drop them or not. We're not getting paid. Yeah, no, no. Um and you know, there's different ways of paying for that. You can pay per photograph, which can end up being quite costly, or you can pay like monthly subscriptions where you can essentially download as much as you can, as much as you can you can in a month. I know there is like a cap to it, but it's so high that it might as well not have one. Um but there's a there's a new thing that that came onto the market a few years ago called Unsplash, which was royalty-free photography, and it was probably sold into the photographers that put their stuff on there as like it's good exposure kind of thing, that old like chestnut that any free user has encountered. Um but what what tends to happen is like obviously it's free, so um it gets like used fairly liberally anyway, but when there is a good image on there that are sort of few and far between, it gets used absolutely everywhere. Like I've seen the same image used by three fairly big brands, like on used on like the side of buses or on the back of buses and stuff, and literally looking at the photograph and going, Oh, that's off Unsplash, and they haven't they haven't paid for that. But you know, it's getting used. But the issue is then that like if you're if you're using an unsplash image and you work for like Amnesty International or something like that, using a free image, and then that same image ends up being used for like UFC 27 or something like that, it's that's the it starts to erod at your brand in uninteres, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_06: 25:36

Exactly, yeah, yeah. I think um what you touched on there, Paul, is is exactly kind of the solution to the problem Nick highlights, which is bloody test it. You know, the idea that using if you're gonna use stock photo as a tool, as a resource, then you have to apply it in the same way you apply any other resource. And if you have the right processes in place, that means that whatever you put together gets tested. You know, even if it is going around the office and you know, using your internal stakeholders as as your testers, it's better than just assuming that, oh, it's been vetted because it's on a stock photo website, because the guarantee is that it probably hasn't been vetted. The closest you'll get to actually being vetted is that other brands have already used it, which kind of devalues it in its own way. So I think, yeah, it's very easy to assume that because it's on a stock photo website on this readily available plug and play out-of-the-box platform, that you don't have to engage with it in the same way you do other processes in other resources.

SPEAKER_03: 26:46

Yeah, and I think as what we mentioned earlier, and I think social media is a is probably a culprit as well for a lot of stock photo. That's um Arla in the background, yeah. And not my stomach. But yeah, and and I think you know, stop because like when you're putting stuff out on social media, it's constant, isn't it? You constantly need like stuff and images and photos and things like that. And if you kind of publishing content, or you know, if you're writing good quality content, you've probably not got time as well to take photos or do things like that. But um there was a good term that um somebody used called sweating content. So which is really it is it is, but um it's it's really good. So what what uh sweating content and we we do this for the show, so um well this is our long form, and then I take a few clips out and put that on social media and stuff like that, and and that is sweating the content. So you get you kind of like your main content, you do work out and you get a few drips of it that you can do otherwise. So kind of like you know, if you're doing uh a lovely video that's kind of like explains how you know your product works and things like that, or you're doing a Kickstarter campaign, you can use clips of that on social media and kind of like you know tends to be like.

SPEAKER_06: 28:18

I realize that had an actual term.

SPEAKER_03: 28:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sweating the colour.

SPEAKER_06: 28:22

The one that gets more and more disgusting the more it's explained. The more you break it down, the more apt it gets. Well, you know, because it is an appropriate kind of analogy. Yeah, the more disgusting it gets.

SPEAKER_03: 28:35

But um yeah, but but some of the problem with that is that you get people then sweating stock photography.

SPEAKER_06: 28:44

And then you're like that's a new problem, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03: 28:47

Yeah, yeah. So then you'll get kind of like a photo, and I think kind of like um I think there's there's been a few brands that are full of vow of this and kind of like where they've they've used and they've kind of like taken the same photo that was from stock ph uh stock photography and they whitewashed the people in the photo. Yeah, yeah. I think Mike Microsoft did this. Uh sorry, drop in names. I don't think you need to apologize for no a few years ago in an advert in Poland, and I think they got they got some feedback and um they changed their social media ads from the website image and made the black guy white. Um and it's just like yeah, fucking and just I know, yeah, yeah. I do yeah. And there's some brand fails and things like that. And then then you get, you know, when you put stuff on social media as well, then you get you were opening up for people to abuse that as well, then, uh, and then make their own versions of that. So I think um I think uh Nutella did a campaign. Um and people then kind of like uh I think they could go on the website and kind of like get get an image and stuff like that, and you could put whatever you wanted on the label. And people were quoting kind of like causes diabetes or like looks like shit, tastes like shit. Things like that. It's kind of like huge uh brand backfire, and you know, but again, it's that kind of like that surely there's some sense check and kind of like you know, with the the boating McBoat face social media, you're like that's kind of like the level you gotta get. Um, so kind of think think about it. And again, just you know, and again, peep people say, Oh, I haven't got time to test, but that could just be asking somebody else. That's could be asking somebody who doesn't work in your team, or it could be somebody who works in your team, or kind of like it's on a different project, or things like that. And like you user testing, kind of like, oh, I haven't got the resources to user testing. It's basically just ask somebody else.

SPEAKER_02: 31:05

Yeah, yeah. Well then that that um I know it never actually works out like this when you're dealing with um teams and stakeholders and budgets, but there's a great little um saying that I like to use, which is if you if you can't afford to do it right, you can't afford to do it twice. And it just means a lot. If you can't afford to do the research and and do the job properly, then surely you can't afford to do the entire process again when it turns out that you did it wrong the first time.

SPEAKER_06: 31:38

Yeah. Or indeed, you know, especially when it comes to brand backfires and stuff like that, your losses from sales, your losses from shareholders, if someone you know if half the world realizes that you're actually being racist in your advertisements for no reason other than if you were that invested in in having an all-white cast in your in your photography. I mean, there's plenty, in fact, a disproportionate amount of stock for photography with just white people in it.

SPEAKER_01: 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 32:15

So um, yeah, I think if you Yeah, I I think you're exactly right. If you're gonna make that mistake, then there is no there's no excuse for it because ultimately uh financially it's gonna be worse.

SPEAKER_02: 32:33

It's not just gonna be more expensive to do it right, it's gonna cost you money to do it wrong. Like it's gonna cost you market share and you know reputation as well, which is arguably um a bigger commodity these days for a lot of brands. Yeah. Which a lot of brands do realise now, but you know, not all of them. Evidently.

SPEAKER_03: 32:57

Yeah, definitely. Which just reminded me of another point I wanted to make was uh stock illustrations. So you can get vectors of illustrations. Oh yeah, and while some of them are absolutely uh brilliant and amazing, they're very few and far between. And also then, if you're using that for wanting, what people tend not to do is then use the same style somewhere elsewhere. And like I think my biggest bugbear is when people get stock icons, and they kind of like they'll get like stock icons because you know the the person who's uploaded them has been savvy enough to just give you a block of icons for an industry set to say healthcare. So you use two or three of those, and then you realise you need some more stock icons, and that original pack didn't have the icons that you want to use next, and then you get another one, and then you put them together, and then you either A, if you know, end up editing all those icons to match the first ones, or B, you've got a real mishmash of icons then and kind of styles, and I see it all the time with different stroke weights of different kind of like even slightly different colours, uh, and like you know, kind of like that that curve isn't quite the same. Oh, it's got like one's got rounded edges and one's got square edges, and it's I know I don't know I'm an obsessive twat for detail. Uh but but you know what, other people are as well.

SPEAKER_02: 34:42

Okay, the other people will will look at that, and then if they go from one page on your website or your product to another, and it looks and feels a little bit different, people then start psychologically questioning their own actions on whether they're actually like a radio as it goes as far as like eroding your trust in the company because he's it just looks so thrown together, yeah. Unconsidered, and like it's like almost like a cottage industry endeavor, like it's just yeah, just chuck anything together, yeah, getting done and out.

SPEAKER_06: 35:18

The significant thing with something like this is that you us as designers are um very detail focused um because it's our job to be. But the reason we are so detail focused is because um we've been able to dive in through our various education, studies, work, etc., to that thing which to everyone else is just greater than some of its parts. A lot of people might not know why they don't like something that's got comic sounds on and disproportioned fonts and mismatched iconography. Um but the their because of that, their reaction tends to be all the more extreme, uh, and they'll just be like, oh, I don't like that. Uh that looks and and they'll very often I remember we did a focus group. We did for a lot of we were it was for this initiative for Birmingham City Council, and it was for a um a portal, an online portal for kids who were going on in education, and so we were doing the branding for it, and we came up, we did a just a focus group asking what kind of brands they liked and stuff like that, and it was it was fantastic in one sense. We got lots of good information, but essentially they liked expensive brands that looked expensive and didn't like cheap brands that their mum used, and that was that was about the extent of it. They didn't like, they must have named about four or five supermarkets, like discount supermarkets for brands they didn't like, and then four or five technology or sports brands for things they did like. Now, in terms of conducting research, it just kind of cemented our demographic, but it didn't actually give us anything tangible to use specifically, because you know we're not going to necessarily imitate Nike for our digital access point for kids furthering our education, but we probably knew not to make it look like Aldi as well, so uh it wasn't completely worthless. But my point is that um the end user often doesn't know why they do or don't like something. Um and so when you do have these inconsistencies, um not only are they not able to engage with your design language as easily, they are um they're um they're they yeah, they react more violently.

SPEAKER_03: 37:50

Well are you slightly biology?

SPEAKER_06: 37:53

Slightly then, yeah. Yeah, slightly of my cat attempting to just destroy and kill everything in the vicinity.

SPEAKER_03: 38:03

I just thought I just thought I'd explain these things for anybody who's listening and not watching.

SPEAKER_02: 38:08

Uh like you can't really the greatest endorsement to watch this podcast on YouTube. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mark's cat is currently like climbing around on the top of a very flimsy, unsecure looking room divider, um, making the most traumatic transition from Mark's half of the room to the empty half of the room imaginable. When she could have just jumped on the ground and walked past it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. How would you do that?

SPEAKER_03: 38:37

I don't know. Definitely. I like how she got on top of the divider and then it almost did like a wolf howl in the top, like a loud.

SPEAKER_06: 38:48

Oh, she's yeah, go and look at go and look online at that. On on you on youtube.com um forward slash fasterhorses, probably.

SPEAKER_01: 38:59

Maybe.

SPEAKER_03: 39:00

Maybe how it works. I'm not actually sure what the USL for that is, but oh god, you can find it on our uh Twitter. Fasterhorses. There you go, yeah. There you go. There you go. I'll put it put it there. Anyway, where was I?

SPEAKER_06: 39:18

Anyway, where were you? You were um I was explaining that yeah, if you're gonna use inconsistent um stock imagery and especially stock iconography, chances are your users won't know what's wrong with your site, but they will definitely feel that something is wrong, and probably all the more for not knowing what it is that's that's wrong.

SPEAKER_03: 39:38

Yeah, it's it's interesting because yeah, because I think I you know some sometimes you know can like when you're doing kind of like a brand thing, you just get, oh, do you like this or do you like that, or do you think this is good? And like someone's good sneeze.

SPEAKER_02: 40:07

I thought your camera had frozen then, and then I saw like your top lip trembling. I was like, where?

SPEAKER_03: 40:16

Um, you look like you'd gone wrong. I know, I was I was kind of mid-sensened, and I was like I went I went uh halfway to kind of hold it in. And then it was kind of like it just wasn't happening. That wasn't it.

SPEAKER_02: 40:39

Again, another endorsement for the YouTube video.

SPEAKER_01: 40:45

That was fucking amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 40:47

Oh god, where was I?

SPEAKER_02: 40:50

You were just about to sneeze, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 40:55

I don't actually remember what you were saying. No, I just distracted me far too much.

SPEAKER_03: 41:02

Oh god, reset.

SPEAKER_02: 41:05

Shall we uh is it time to do a UX Tumboller or do we need to talk about it? Shall we a bit more? What do you want to do?

SPEAKER_06: 41:11

Well, there was one thing I did want to broach quickly. Um I've still I've noticed that tends to be the formula for these podcasts, by the way, is we're about to move on, and I go, but I just had a thought. But um, you know, it works. Uh but that is I think again, we might have even talked about this in the past, but when you've got these stock photo websites, part part of the biggest problem is searching. And I would go as far as to say I don't think any of the um well, to be honest, any big site that collects together similar data, I'm thinking stock photography, um Netflix and streaming services, uh Spotify and music streaming, uh tend not to have the kind of uh search functionality that actually supports the mass of content they have on there. Yeah. And I think that might be one of the biggest reasons people are defaulting to the same handful of stock photos for the branding, because um if you put if I was to put a stock photo on there now, um no matter how good it was, algorithmically it wouldn't get very far until uh you know, unless some set of circumstances, coincidences aligned to to put it to the front page.

SPEAKER_03: 42:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think yeah, because on those those filters and those search tools, well then nice. Like you can choose the colour, does it need copy space or you know, kind of like the the four you know, the the size for landscape or portrait and things like that? Well while that's quite uh good creatively, it's useless content-wise.

SPEAKER_06: 42:49

Yes, yeah, there's no copy apply to it.

SPEAKER_03: 42:52

Yeah, and and kind of like oh want I want a blue image. Well that's cool, but you know, a blue yeah, you're gonna get like a f bunch of photos with Smurfs back or something. Yeah, you can't search for kind of like oh you know, and you could I mean they could put some AI and machine learning behind it some way, um Well they definitely could now.

SPEAKER_02: 43:16

I mean your own iPhone is a search function on images now. And if you type in something, it it the algorithm or whatever it is detects what images you've got in your phone and returns results based on your search terminology, which is quite like crazy. But but sites like iStock and stuff don't have that same technology. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 43:39

I think that's probably the next step. Um, you know, stuff that uh in the interim you can have intelligent tagging, maybe, but then it's up to the user to put whatever the tags and chances that just become a hashtag game.

SPEAKER_02: 43:51

The issue with that is that the person who took the picture and the person searching for the picture have to eat be equally as on the same level in terms of the thing that the either posted or the searching for, or like equally creative. I noticed because I used to use iStock quite a lot and used to just return the same images no matter what I searched for. I had to get really creative with like the search terms that I was looking for, or think about like almost a back door into the image that I wanted, and and so that it turn up some new images or images that other people were searching for. You had to get really creative with the search terminology, but that requires it to either be in the heading or in the like meta tags, doesn't it? In the first place. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 44:39

Oh well, I think well, the next I think the next evolution of stock photography will be your AI generated art.

SPEAKER_02: 44:47

Well, you mean like straight up AI generated?

SPEAKER_03: 44:50

Yeah, yeah. So something like uh have you seen what wombo.ai? So you can put in I did it, I did it on social media a few weeks ago and put faster horses in, and it gave me this horrific picture.

SPEAKER_02: 45:06

I was uh I was watching a podcast this week where some guys found this, I don't know if it was a site or a paid service or what, but you literally it might even have been voice recognition rather than type it. But they were like, uh, show me a picture of two cats um sat with a pizza and an AI like created it, but it was it was a photograph, it wasn't an illustration. Yeah, it it was absolutely crazy. Oh no, it was two cats playing chess, that's it. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. Just created an image of two kittens sat at a chessboard from nothing.

SPEAKER_03: 45:39

Yeah, that that's I mean, that for me, that'd be useful stuff photography. Yeah, yeah, two cats playing chess. Well, yeah, yeah, definitely. You don't get that very often, are you? That would sell to me.

SPEAKER_02: 45:51

Your security business. You say that, but like this is something that I wanted to touch on. Is like, if you go on iStock, I'm sure there's entire websites dedicated to this, but me and my mate that I used to work with used to find the weirdest images on iStock and just send them to each other, and and and like we'd just start pissing ourselves in the middle of the office because it's like, well, first of all, yeah, the image is funny, but why the fuck is it on the website? Why is it on there? What per what possible purpose could you have for this image that you've put onto a paid website? Let me you can share your screen on here, can't you? I think, yeah, yeah, you can. So I've I just went and just had a quick look for one, right? Just check this out. Why would this be a thing that you can you why would anyone ever use this?

SPEAKER_06: 46:38

Oh, this is super exciting. This might have to be a YouTube exclusive this episode. You're at the content master visually. Not yet. We can't see anything just yet.

SPEAKER_00: 46:50

Uh why is it not working?

SPEAKER_02: 46:52

Uh share. I'm clicking share, it's not sharing. No, it's not, is that? Does you have to choose choose uh windows? Do I have to give it permission?

SPEAKER_03: 47:02

Because I'm on Apple Oase.

SPEAKER_02: 47:05

Yeah. Yeah. Oh that's doo-doo, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03: 47:07

Well either we can call that bit.

SPEAKER_02: 47:11

Either Riverside or Apple, you've uh you've really let us down there. I think Apple.

SPEAKER_06: 47:16

Probably Apple, it usually is. Oh well.

SPEAKER_02: 47:19

Yeah. Alright. We'll take that out in post.

SPEAKER_06: 47:23

Yeah, I always I always think though, because I think you got a really good point. I always there's always a part of my brain that's looking at a stock photo, imagining what it was like when that was being taken.

SPEAKER_02: 47:37

Like how did they come about this? Like you had to go out of your way. So the picture that I found was a guy with like a kid like a single visor sunglasses on.

SPEAKER_04: 47:48

Alright.

SPEAKER_02: 47:49

You know, one of those sets of sunglasses. Almost like uh thingy off um off Star Trek with like the Jody LaForge or whatever he's called.

SPEAKER_04: 47:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 47:59

Um, and he's he's holding a big glass of milk with a pink straw in it, and then he's got loads of toilet papers tied to him with electrical cables, and he's just sat like this. What why? Why did you go through all the effort to get all those toilet rolls and and waste a glass of milk and take that picture?

SPEAKER_06: 48:18

Like a college student's art project based on abstract surrealism, and they've just completely missed the brief. And they're gonna take a few photos of that, develop them in the in the nearest dark room, and uh, you know, they'll what they'll do is they'll they'll put those those photographs in in a tea mixture to age them and then put them with pegs around the room, and that'll be their exhibit, because that's every college student's area.

SPEAKER_02: 48:52

That and like a huge pile of insulating foam that they've just squirted onto the floor that always on those as well. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_03: 49:01

Oh my god, um this reminds me, this is really off topic, and and I'm sorry to drop that. But uh but I I I went um, you know where you can do like you can visit uh student exhibitions and stuff like that. I met this uh artist and he was doing some arts exhibition experiments where he was trying to grow plants, uh, and he did like a case study of one in water and others in whiskey, gin, vodka, and surprisingly, the ones in the alcohol-based waters died. Really? Oh my god, it was like a shark. So you and it was like and I was there going like hmm, it is interesting, and I was thinking like I think I could have told you that before you started.

SPEAKER_06: 49:57

I'm not sure that is actually an art project.

SPEAKER_03: 50:00

Uh no, I know, and I was thinking, like, how how is this useful for me?

SPEAKER_06: 50:07

Did he was there a wider exploration in terms of you know what it was meant to represent societally as you know, water being good, alcohol being bad, which again is not necessarily the most you know incredible artistic revelation. Or was it just a f just a b botanical experiment that I'm afraid had been done in the Victorian period at the very latest?

SPEAKER_03: 50:34

Yeah, yeah. I think it was just a botanical experiment. I could understand it if it was kind of like then turned into photos or pressed uh the yeah, it's just beyond it. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that that was it, and it was kind of like, oh, I've got a good idea. Let's uh let's put this I've got an idea.

SPEAKER_06: 50:56

Let's not talk to anyone about it, let's just do it.

SPEAKER_03: 51:00

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's probably a good idea at the end of the night when you've kind of got the the you know, like a smidge of whiskey left and you put a plant in it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 51:09

You drop a watermelon seed in it, and wonder I thought, hmm. I wonder what will happen here. Maybe art.

SPEAKER_03: 51:15

Yeah. Or maybe I can grow a whiskey plant. Yes. And I can I can milk the whiskey plants. Milk the whiskey plant. And uh yeah, get it. Whiskey milk from a cereal in the morning.

SPEAKER_06: 51:34

Yeah, yeah. Step one, whiskey. Step two, whack tape question mark. Yeah. Step three, profit.

SPEAKER_03: 51:42

Profit. I I yeah, that this is how um oat milk is made as well, isn't it? They they grow oats and milk, milk and milk. Yeah, yeah, just like tiny little, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 51:56

Milks little oat teats into a tiny bucket.

SPEAKER_01: 52:01

Oh gosh. That's why it's so expensive because it's so labour intensive. Yeah, they have to train bees to do it.

SPEAKER_02: 52:11

The saffron and then oat milk, that's fine, that's and then gold.

SPEAKER_01: 52:17

Yeah, yeah. Oh god. Um UX Tombola. I guess so. Let's do a quick one.

SPEAKER_02: 52:24

UX Tombola, get me like That sound means it's time for UX Tombola! The segment of the show where we put the random property time object, service or place from the Tombola machine and discuss it's terrible, all great, UX.

SPEAKER_03: 52:46

Spin the wheel, man.

SPEAKER_01: 53:08

Has this been slowed down like fifteen percent or something? I feel like I'm having a stroke.

SPEAKER_03: 53:16

I think you've lost the will to live to it.

SPEAKER_07: 53:20

Can't relate.

SPEAKER_06: 53:25

I've just got a text um because I thought that would be the appropriate thing to do whilst waiting for that car crash to unfold. Um, which was uh Amazon saying, problem with your payment. Please complete your payment so we can uh process your Amazon order, otherwise your order will be cancelled. I've got a feel I mean, I haven't ordered anything from Amazon.

SPEAKER_03: 53:48

So I was gonna say, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 53:51

I don't think that's real. Um I was I was actually hoping sometimes you're a bit more threatening than that, and that's always a bit of a thrill. Like when when you know, this is a letter from Mr. Bezos. Your extended order for cat food has been declined. We are going to kill you. I don't know, I'd be apt to uh I'd I'd I'd I'd click that link, you know. Anything for a good story, me.

SPEAKER_03: 54:17

Oh dear. Some people go to theme parks and roller coasters. Mark. Yes, replies to spam spam.

SPEAKER_06: 54:29

You never know. That that you Gamden prince is trying to send me four hundred million dollars. He might turn out to be just legit just trying to help out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

unknown: 54:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 54:44

Right, it's called m money laundering.

SPEAKER_02: 54:49

Um what today's thing, today's UX Stumble subject. Yeah, sorry. I was just trying to think of the words. I think you had a bit a bit of lag. My brain's got lagged today.

SPEAKER_00: 55:05

Um you've got a high fee for sneeze.

SPEAKER_02: 55:09

I could have covered my track set if it had just got the two. Uh today's subject, uh UX Stumbo subject on this piece of paper that I really have in my hand is takeaway pizza.

SPEAKER_03: 55:25

Ooh. Ooh. This is like full circle to the beginning. Is it? Well, we're talking about uh yeah, uh uh Delivery and uh we did mention just eat, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 55:37

Yeah, yeah. I always find it interesting that the supplier of the boxes is always someone different from the provider of the pizza. And it's just it's just one of the I don't I don't it's it's when I say interesting, right? I realise now as I mentioned this. Interesting is probably the wrong wrong word. It's the kind of thing that you might what do you think it was a thought that we did? Yes. And I might have gone, huh, and then continued doing whatever I was doing. It is not exactly the grounds for philosophical discourse. But um what were you what did you mean? So the pizza boxes are provided by uh like a pizza box company. Yeah, a pizza box company, and there are about three or four main ones I've noticed. Um it's just very interesting. It's not very interesting, Mark. We're learning very painfully that this is not remotely interesting. But I always um I always thought it was curious. Um the branding on each pizza box would be the the same, even though the first place I got it from would be different.

SPEAKER_02: 56:54

Yeah, it's like the branding of the pizza box company.

SPEAKER_06: 56:58

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 56:59

That's that's what I meant to say.

SPEAKER_07: 57:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which would have got this entire bullshit thing in in half.

SPEAKER_03: 57:08

I love that. You go you go to set up a uh uh kind of like a pizza company, and you're kind of like, yeah, you're gonna oh yeah, I'll do these really amazing pizzas. Uh but uh because I've listened to Faster Horses podcasts, I've realized I've got to have a sideline and making pizza my own pizza pizza. Pizza boxes as well. Yeah, well exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 57:31

But it's just more money. It's just less pizza. Yeah, yeah. Why would you bother? Well, that's it, yeah. But I know I know the one you mean, it's the one that's like it's it's black on the top with a picture of a pizza that's always got olives on. Yeah. And it's it's usually like one of the corners is like a bit of an Italian flag, and it just says like pizza hot for you on the top, or something like that.

SPEAKER_07: 57:58

Something that's been passed through Google Translate a couple of times.

SPEAKER_06: 58:02

Okay, so I've just remembered something very important regarding pizza boxes and not pizza boxes, pizza and stock photos. Um so this is good because it rhymes, it's like poetry. And that is that I ship you not. There is a fish and chip shop that does good pizza, it's got a good stone baking pizza oven there and whatnot. But on the menu, which is on this screen, which uh has like slideshows across, every single pizza on it has either broccoli or sprouts on it. It is the most traumatic pizza ordering description. No, no, no. The p they sell quite a normal range of pizzas. But every single stock photo they've chosen has sprouts or broccoli on it. Usually with other things as well, like olives and anchovies. Um and and and to a like a suspicious degree of being cooked, so one will at least you can tell your olives uh not your olives, your your sprouts have been fried off. In another, they're completely raw. And so it's like it comes back to this this question now. I was imagining someone taking these photographs and thinking they must have been some kind of psychopathic hermit who'd been disengaged with society so long they didn't realise the invention of pizza and had had it described to them by someone, I don't know, who themselves had only read about it.

SPEAKER_02: 59:38

Or there was some like or there's like some sort of communication breakdown on the set on the day. And some some poor runner comes up to the photographer and they're like, So uh I've been told I've been sent over to tell you that we've got the sprouts, uh and the photographer's like, Thank God we need to get these shots now, and they and the runner's like Um uh due due to a uh a a bit of a a mishap that not cooked, and the photographer's like, God damn it! We'll we'll fix the sprouts in post. So they'd like go ahead and take the pictures anyway, and then something happens and they run out of time to to to or that you know someone didn't pay the Photoshop bill that month or something. So the anemic sprouts. Yeah. Oh, that's what I like to think happened.

SPEAKER_06: 1:00:28

It was like I remember it's coming back to me now. Um it does there's one one of the pictures has raw mushrooms on it. That's a cooked pizza with raw mushrooms on. It's just mind-boggling. The the cheese is melted. The cheese is melted. The the it's a cooked pizza, and then the as you say, that poor runner who was not having a good day of it. It's just like we've not we're not we've we've forgotten the mushrooms when we did the pizza.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:58

Oh I wonder yeah, I won't I wonder if kind of like they'd kind of made this pizza and then like I think you'd be good with something else on it. Like it looks a bit unhealthy.

SPEAKER_06: 1:01:08

Yeah, let's just wonder if you're gonna be able to do already taking 54 saws of a margarita, but I can't be asked making another pizza. So I'm gonna turn this margarita into something else by adding raw mushrooms and stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:21

Imagine the conversation in the boardroom. They're like, right, the new um we're updating the artwork on the pizza boards this year, guys. Um what we need what we need more than anything is is mass appeal. We need a photograph that appeals to any person that will walk into the takeaway, and it'll make immediately make them sell of it. Just going round the table, um what what's the number one food that everybody universally loves? And then some guy stands up, the CEO of the business club. Yeah, yeah. Well, I like sprouts, and everyone probably goes, Oh yes, me too, yes, yes. But it's everyone everyone else in the boardroom just looks at each other and goes, uh uh yeah, sprouts, yeah, everybody loves sprouts.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:11

I've got this kind of like vision now. It's like, well, this is like a a fish and chip shop.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:16

It is a fish and chip shop, yeah. I think like like small industry works, is that the bite there's the bone meeting at the top. Yeah. It's Mr. Getty, it's Mr. Getty sat in the boardroom and he's he single-handedly approves every image that gets put on Getty images. And he's like, hmm, I well, I like sprouts.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:45

I just love the idea of the fish chip shows to go see.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:49

When you started telling the story, I thought you were gonna tell I thought you I thought I I thought you were gonna tell my takeaway story, which I like to tell, which is there's uh there's a Chinese takeaway by now by my mum's house, so I don't live there anymore. And um it used I used to laugh every time I went in because it had the Chinese menu and then at the end it had English dishes, and the first thing the first thing on the list under English dishes was Spanish OnlyFans every time did they have curry on there or you mean on the English menu? Yes, yeah. Well, I mean I think I think the term curry is actually an English invention, isn't it? Or it just means sauce anyway, and then we've just run with that.

SPEAKER_06: 1:03:44

Sounds like something we do, yeah. Yeah, right. So anyway, I was I was watching a BBC Maestro trailer um with oh, it was a snippet with um Alan Moore. I don't know if you're familiar with Alan Moore, the great comic book writer. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh and he made the really interesting point that most superpowers are actually useless. And I thought this was an amazing point. And he said, um, and you can find this on YouTube, just search Alan Moore, BBC Maestro, come on. But um said, most superpowers are actually useless. What would you do if you had super speed? If loads of people had super speed, the only job you'd actually be good for in society is pizza delivery. And if we lived in a society where that was a common trait, we'd just have loads of people zipping around delivering pizzas at like um supersonic speed. And I, you know, I think I mean it's a potential solution, isn't it? It might take a bit of Mark Steele scientifically endeavouring into the quantum realm, but if he can crack that one, then it's got a product.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:04

But surely if everybody's got super speed. Nobody has super speed. Nobody has super speed.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:10

We all do have super speed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well like it's our toys.

SPEAKER_06: 1:05:17

Yeah, I think it would still have to have an element of like genetic exclusivity, I think, to maintain it as a viable industry. Um you know, there's supersonic delivery.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:28

Um yeah, yeah. And I'm sure I'm sure there's other uses for super speed as well. You like there could be milking bloody outplants speed battle for the price of outdown.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:45

But it's but I thought, yeah, but it like Mark says, if everyone's got super speed, no one does. Like it's exactly the same situation we're in now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:05:55

I love that, the idea of a new net zero.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:58

Yeah. And then if you yeah, and then if you expected I mean that that's always the I mean like pizza delivery and takeaway, I think you have the expectation of the best time possible. And you always want it delivered at that time. And if it takes longer to ruins the pizza, isn't it? Yeah, it ruins the pizza.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:22

Also, so getting it early is a problem as well. So I when they give you a time, a delivery time or an estimated time of arrival or whatever, you expect it to come like at that time. I've I used to order, I used to like go out and then um on the way home, I can't remember what I was doing, but I'd order a Chinese to get there more or less the same time I got home. Then when it turns up more than once to rung me and be like, Oh, we're outside the house, like, can you come down? I'm like, Well, I'm not there, I'm gonna be 15 minutes because you said that you deliver it at quarter past, so what happened? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's just just as well, in fact, on some in some occasions worse than it arriving late unless it's certainly old or certainly for the delivery guy, isn't it?

SPEAKER_06: 1:07:08

Yeah. He has to decide whether to hang around for 15 minutes and or just take it out of the box and stick it to the window.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07: 1:07:19

Post it through your letterbox one slice at a time.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:24

You could use those 15 minutes to take some really good stock photography. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:30

Sprout pizza.

SPEAKER_06: 1:07:34

Yeah, uh so I do think, yeah, there's something very specific about that timing thing, because we when we've ordered Chinese food, and I know we're talking more about takeaway in general, actually, aren't we? Takeaway delivery, but I think that's fine. And it arrived, it was due to arrive, it was quite a big order uh for about three or four people, due to arrive in an hour, and it arrived in 15 minutes, and I just assumed I was going to die. I just some some some contrived set of circumstances here, either the food was you know still alive, or um, yeah, it was yesterday's food, or it was just I mean, it turned out to be perfectly lovely. They must have just had a good kind of kitchen staff on and and everything lined itself up. But um yeah, I think again, if if something uh if you you set a certain expectation around that time as a customer, and you plan certain things around that time, but also you in your head you imagine the process that's going on behind it that should take a certain amount of time. And if you've been told it takes an hour to make your food, you expect it to them to be engaged with that for the full hour.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:50

Yeah. Uh you know what I I find do you do you ever get mixed up uh ingredients on your pizza?

SPEAKER_06: 1:08:58

Uh I have in I have in food orders, definitely, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:01

And I I've got a theory behind why this happens. So uh at my local Papa John's, I'm not in uh commission, but um I went I went inside and it they've got like two small monitors. Uh so when somebody places an order online or via the phone or whatever, it goes on there, and not only are those monitors small, but the text is like probably 12 point fonts, and they're like, and I've never seen that screen have more than like four orders on. And like and and like and when did like somebody make the decision that that software was gonna get that screen was gonna get so full, yeah, and they could process like like four and like they'd have like uh a store that could process 40 orders at exactly the same time uh that that could fit onto that screen. And I was thinking like this is probably why I get the wrong ingredients all the time, because it's but fucking on that, yeah.

SPEAKER_07: 1:10:12

Russell sprouts, yeah, not again. We're running love.

SPEAKER_06: 1:10:18

The font is so fucking small, I'm not surprised it gets mixed up, and like that just I mean, just even then, even if the font was legible, having four or four or more orders on the screen at once, surely you get a cognitive overlord issue as well. If you're trying to zip through a no, you know, a number of orders uh and you've got four to say you it's a busy night, you've got ten on the screen at once, um and and this thing is ticking away. How are you meant to remember where you are in?

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:50

Well, not not only that, but how much benefit like obviously I'd never worked in a panel job house, but how much benefit is there in knowing what is after those four orders? Like how many orders deep do you work? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:05

Or e or even what's the what's the value in knowing what's after the ord what's after the order you're gonna make? Um yeah, it's almost like um Tetris, and you kind of see the next block coming. Yeah and like while that is quite useful for there, 90% of the time, I just fucking ignore it until it appears on the screen. Yeah, I've got to deal with it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:29

I never understood that I never understood that Tetris thing because it's like, well, it's coming whether I like it or not. That's kind of the point of the game.

unknown: 1:11:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:38

I suppose it's where you plan in what you can plan for it, the first one, and things like that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:43

But in Tetris, like in life, Paul, I've never planned anything as much as one step ahead.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:50

But in terms of pizza, you're not gonna think like I I'm gonna um you know, I know the next order's got like triple pineapple and like quadruple Brussels sprouts on. Uh like sounds delicious. So that's gonna affect how I make this pizza. I don't know, it has no relevance whatsoever.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:13

Yeah, but I better hold back on the Brussels sprouts on this one because there's a big incomplete.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:17

Yeah. Yeah. And I can only think it's there for some management point of view and not the end user.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:29

Well, again, managers it very much seems like an engineer's solution to a user's problem, don't it? Like many, many things out there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:12:38

If it is if it is, you know, to understand capacity, you only need a an order total. You know, this is order number, whatever, out of whatever. Um and and that should be fine.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:54

Yeah, and then does everybody need to know kind of how many orders are paying? But I mean that could be res represented in a little pizza and you know you could kind of have a build-up and kind of like, you know. Now you can put some fucking AI on it and kind of like if it gets too busy, get in, you know, phone some more staff. Yeah. Get some more staff coming in.

SPEAKER_06: 1:13:13

Stop accepting orders for the time being. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Or uh I imagine they'd put a notice on the website and say, extended times in high demand.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:23

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:13:24

But maybe they do. Maybe they do have a slight some auxiliary systems elsewhere. I suppose this is only UX tombola, we never do any research for this, but we are waxing lyrical about a process none of us engage in.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:36

We've like uncharacteristically actually talked about the UX of a takeaway pizza, aren't we? Whereas usually we just fucking go off on an absolute tangent and talk garbage for 20 minutes. Actually, when I when I read it, I did I did take it a bit more literally and like did mentally focus on the actual pizza itself rather than the process of creating it.

SPEAKER_06: 1:14:00

Focus most on the delivery side of it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:02

Yeah. Yeah, which is the issue. That's the breakdown, innit? Is the delivery usually. Especially when you're dealing with like a third party now like Uber Eats or Delivery, where the deliverer perhaps rightly couldn't give less of a fuck about actually delivering the food.

SPEAKER_06: 1:14:20

Yeah, or if indeed they're incentivized, it's not in the right way. Yeah, exactly. It's in a way that's basically exploits.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:28

I've got a theory about this as well. I'd kinda like, yeah, they 'cause they they just want to get the orders out. And like, have you have you recently been into a restaurant or something like that does delivery or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I find that when they've got a lot of orders, the service in the restaurant plummets to in favour of the delivery room. Yeah, yeah. And I wonder if they have like some kind of like it benchmarks or things like that, or um but it's just an incentive, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:15:05

Well, I suppose technically they're not meeting a time obligation when you're sat in the restaurant compared to what's written in the app. They are they are, of course, on a personal level, but they're willing to risk the metric of you getting up and walking out.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:22

But yes, but on the app, they can and will get like real-time feedback directed at them about the delivery time as well. And their actual business will take a hit. So I can understand it. Whereas the majority of people in the restaurant will ride out away time and there's no audit trail of their complaint, even if they do complain, unless you're so pissed off that you go home and comment on um TripAdvisor or something like that. But who even listens to TripAdvisor reviews anymore?

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:55

I was talking about this last night, and um it's that it's that bubble of being behind a screen where you you can rant loads more because you're not doing it to an actual person, but in person your threshold goes up because you don't want to upset the waiter.

SPEAKER_06: 1:16:14

If you've got even the slightest modicum of empathy, you know, and you you don't want to lambass the person you know it's definitely not the fault of. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:24

Even if technically they are the area representative of the organisation at that point.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:29

Sorry, Nick Horn. Sorry, we just I just talked over the top of here, then that was very rude. Alright, I was just saying there's a special place in hell for people who are rude to weight staff.

SPEAKER_06: 1:16:39

Yeah, I think there's a special place in hell for people who are rude in general.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:44

Yeah. Um see you there. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:16:47

Bye.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:48

Anyway, did we come up with a so I mean so one thing I wanted to say about like actual takeaway pizza in general is that the worst pizza I've ever eaten was still a pizza and therefore was about a solid five on like the good food scale in general. I reckon all the worst pizza in the world is the worst pizza in the world is still a pizza.

SPEAKER_06: 1:17:14

Yeah, and all pizza is essentially this controversial point, is all all pizza essentially is glorified cheese on toast.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:22

No. No. I like I no, I just well like what I'm not. I've got friends who are like I've got friends who are like gluten intolerant or lactose intolerant or vegan, and I'm like, I understand all of those things, like some of them are allergies and you've got no choice, or like it's a it's a personal choice to not engage with animal products at all, which I understand like and and agree with. But I just don't if you can't eat pizza, I don't really understand what you're living for.

SPEAKER_06: 1:18:02

I mean, I eat plenty of pizza, I just happen to my attitude towards pizza is similar to my attitude towards Star Wars, in that it's fine. It's uh it's good. I in fact I go on I'll go, it's more than fine, it's good. Um but that's about the extent of my opinion on it. I have some I've had some bloody amazing pizzas, and I think certain Star Wars films are a lot better than others.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:31

Um not to go too much on a tangent, but I think I would say that there are two, maybe three good Star Wars films, and the rest are bad. And just fine for another time. By insisting on making continuing to make Star Wars films, the net the net value of Star Wars has gone down. I think. But it was just three films, it was almost beyond reproach.

SPEAKER_06: 1:19:03

I think this is because it's now diluting the lore base, the the the enjoyment people get by filling in the blanks for themselves.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I always find that is way way better anyway. The less you know about something, the more in gate in the more intriguing it is.

SPEAKER_06: 1:19:23

So um is it so I've again I've only heard this secondhand, I've not watched the Book of Bob effect. No. Um but isn't he isn't there a Rancor in that which is like his pet or something?

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:19:34

Yeah, yeah. Isn't the Rancor supposed to be like one of the galaxies' most fearsome creatures? Well like there's a reason he's in the pit with what's his face, where is it Jabba the Hoot or something like that in the earlier film? And then all of a sudden they've undermined that somewhat.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:52

But it's one of those things where they've explained something that doesn't need explaining, right? So on in in that film, Luke gets Spoiler alert for a fucking four year old film. If you've not seen it now, it's because you don't want to see it. If you've not seen it, literally the most famous film of all time, then I'm about to spoil I'm about to spoil it for you. It's not it's not the bit where you find out that Luke's his father. Oops. I mean, sorry, not Luke's father. Darth Vader is Luke's father. Yeah. Luke's the son. But again, if you didn't know that twist, uh can welcome to the human race. I hope you've had a nice life in your cave up until this point. Um what the fuck is that? Yeah, so there's um there's a moment where it basically fights the Rancor and he kills it. And then at the end, almost as like a visual gag, there's there's a shot of the the guy who looks after the pit, like crying because the Rancor's dead. And it's it's just like to me that that was always just like a throwaway kind of like, oh, he's laughing, he's crying about the big monster dieting. Um because he's a monster too, kind of thing. And then in in Baba Fett, yeah, they they spend an entire sort of quarter of the episode explaining that um the imprint on on the first person they see, and that they're actually quite sensitive. And the reason that the Rancor was fighting is because it's it's he thought he was like protecting the person that they'd imprinted on, and that the Rancor handler and the Rancor have like quite a close relationship, and that's why the guy was crying at the end of that scene.

SPEAKER_06: 1:21:24

But it's just like undermines the protagonist of your film.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:28

Well, yeah, maybe it's like firstly, you only notice that if you were like so into the source material, like way more into the source material than anyone, any other sort of normal person would likely to be, and then you've like overthought it, and then you've been in a place where you were writing this episode, and you're like, oh, what's a cool thing that we could throw in? Because I'm a Star Wars fan, and you're a Star Wars fan too, and what's something that I could nod to and be like, show off my knowledge about Star Wars and think of something that no one else has thought about in Star Wars. Let's write this completely unnecessary thing. Can you tell that I've got an opinion about this? And I thought it was. I'm quite enjoying this opinion, you know. Yeah, and it's just it like just leave it unsaid. It's way more if you explain everything, it like there's nothing left to enjoy about it. No, but not only that, like everything like this shoot, it's literally like set in a galaxy far, far away, right? I I'm from Halifax originally and I moved to Manchester, and I can walk, I can go out for an entire day in Manchester and not bump into anyone that I know from any any aspect of my life. Whereas in any given episode or film from Star Wars, someone will bump into someone that they know. Like everyone is related, or everyone knows each other, like every character has sprung up in someone else's story, and it's just like it's supposed to be a huge galaxy with near like countless planets, but yet everyone knows each other. The more that they tie these characters up to each other, the less believable and intriguing it becomes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:16

Far, far away. So a hamlet's a very small village. Oh, I thought you meant I thought you meant like the plane.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:23:28

I was gonna say right, so with that in mind, have we got a solution for the pizza delivery problem?

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:39

I I think you've you've got to sell, I think you've got just gotta do an advert for the fish and chip shop.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:46

Please, please, please.

SPEAKER_06: 1:23:49

Um I drop the name in there because it's actually first of all, the pizza's really good, and the fish and chips is really good, and it's all really cheap. And it's not in Bolton Park, it's in central Manchester. Well, it's like it's like one of the longest standing fish and chip shops in the city centre. And they do pizza. And they do, yeah. In fact, that's a pretty new expansion to their operation, isn't it? You know, you can actually sit in upstairs as uh like a little cafe restaurant area. Um and this they sell other stuff as well, which uh is which I now realize I make it so like drugs or pornographic material, but I can't just can't remember what other food stuff it is this old. Um yeah, but anyway, uh anyway, my Mark Sealer, take it away. Yeah, yeah, let's see. Let's just uh get into character.

SPEAKER_07: 1:24:41

Hello, you have caught me tossing my door. There is in my new enterprise at Bolton Services in the burnt out shell of the little chef, we found the oven and we've turned it on. And outside in the yew skip, there was enough sediment to grow some sprouts. So we've done the best thing Bolton Services providers wanted and needed, and certainly fucking deserved. We've created uh Mark Steeler's Pizza Emporium and Arcade. All pizzas have sprouts, love you.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:32

Mark Steeler is sounding way less raspy these days. Is it?

SPEAKER_07: 1:25:36

Yeah, it's because I've just completely turning into me. I've assimilated the next one of one.

SPEAKER_06: 1:25:44

Yeah. I'm just gonna be like, hello, I'm Mark Steele. I always we are Mark Steeler.

SPEAKER_07: 1:25:52

We are Mark Steeler.

SPEAKER_06: 1:25:54

Yeah, um he's doing quite well, he's quit smoking. That's what it is. Hello. Because that was how we were used to talk.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:01

Hello, I'm Mark Steela. I'm out of a living.

SPEAKER_06: 1:26:09

No, I've not done the character properly in a while, have I? Um so next time next time next time. This was actually his nephew. Um Portuguese chap Marcus Stark Miller. Stark Mealer. Oh god, that sounds pessimistic.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:30

But is he a Spanish omelette specialist?

SPEAKER_07: 1:26:32

Yeah, yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:37

Yeah, um, this is uh fish and chip shop serving exclusively um English dishes. What do you like? Spanish omelets and a pizza with spots.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:54

Right? Love it. Are you gonna take us you're gonna take us out, Paul? I should take this out, shouldn't I? Let's uh hit it.

SPEAKER_06: 1:27:04

Well that's it for this episode of Faster Horses. If you like the show, please like, subscribe, and leave a review. It really does help. You can join us on patreon.com forward slash faster horses from one pound a month for more chat, UX Tombola, and the hottest new products from Bolt and Arcade's own Mark Steeler. Special thanks to James Med for our theme shooting. I'm Mark Sutcliffe. I'm Nick Tomlinson. I'm Paul Shaw. Follow us on Twitter at Fasterhorses UX, and we'll catch you in two weeks for more Faster Horses.

SPEAKER_03: 1:27:40

There we go. Yeah. Another episode in the bag. Yeah. I like it. What what's the you've got to tell us the name of the fish and chips?

SPEAKER_06: 1:27:50

It's the fish and chips hut, I think.

SPEAKER_03: 1:27:52

The fish and chips and chips.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:55

I love I love how it's called the fish and chips hut. And finally, after like three decades of doing fish and chips, they've embraced the company we stole the name from and started doing pizza.

SPEAKER_06: 1:28:09

It's just called the fish hut, not the fish and chips. Okay, okay. They do chips? They do, yes. And they're pretty good. They're pretty good. Pretty good. Well there you go. I mean, it costs you it costs you for fish chips and mushy peas with gravy, it costs you like£6.60. What? Which is I mean, for centre of Manchester, that's not bad. And it's good stuff as well. Yeah. And uh well, as is always the case, um, because me and Chris have been in there a few times now, the staff seem to know exactly who we are.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:44

Not these fuckers.

SPEAKER_06: 1:28:48

And um hopefully they're not listeners of faster horses, otherwise I might get a link to next time I go in, they'll be it'll just be piss instead of carry souls.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:58

Oh god. Stop piss, stop piss. It's the other one.

SPEAKER_06: 1:29:08

Oh dear, oh dear.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:11

I don't know.

SPEAKER_06: 1:29:12

That's what you get if you have that's what happens, that's why they have sprouts and all the pizzas, because it's it induces Labour.

unknown: 1:29:23

Oh god.

SPEAKER_06: 1:29:31

Not in the not in the go and have an omelet or something.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29:37

I'm special.

SPEAKER_06: 1:29:38

I'm gonna order a pizza.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:40

Yeah, I think I am right. Uh nice. Cool, enjoy, and uh yeah, see you soon. See you next time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:52

Love you.