Config 2025: How to pitch ideas and cut through the noise with Wojtek Dziedzic

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Hello everyone. So, uh, first of all,

yes, my name is Voytech and yes, this is

my real name. Just to get it out of the

way. Feel free to pronounce it however

you like. Uh, we don't have the time for

pronunciations. Anyway, I currently work

uh on product design at Nord and I

worked on a few other things before

that. And all of this work led me to a

single depressing

realization. Ideas do not matter. And

this little car proves it. And you know,

it sounds really stupid. What do you

mean ideas don't matter? Design is all

about coming up with creative ways to

solve problems. Okay, so I have a short

little story that will maybe convince

you. These days, uh, the country I'm

from, Poland, is doing pretty well

economically speaking, but in the 70s,

it was one of the poorest places in

Europe. People were barely scraping by.

Uh, huge bread lines, empty

storeshelves, just generally not fun.

And to quantify this, 90% of people

wanted to buy a car, but only 2% could

actually afford one. The government had

a conundrum. They needed to introduce a

car that people could maybe afford. And

so they introduced

this. This is the Fiat 126P. And it's

absolute garbage even by 70

standards. It had a small engine. It was

cramped and slow. It was ugly. And all

of the awfulness was actually an issue

of political stability. Think about it.

People covered their car and the only

one available was so bad that it kind of

symbolized the awful living

conditions. It's easy to assume that

this story ends in a disaster, but you

would be wrong because today the fiat

isn't just some remnant of a horrible

past, but a bonafide national symbol.

There's a city door in Wars, so you can

take in one, a keychain, a commemorative

coin, an actual video game, and it's

kind of terrible, by the way. Here's a

photo of me with one

kid, a natural model, and a few other

things. The iron curtain fell, but the

Fiat remained popular. So, how is it

possible that something so terrible on

paper? Uh, keep in mind, most people

still couldn't afford the car. How did

something so terrible become not just

accepted, but actually

beloved? The answer is

communication. Sure, the Fiat was a

terrible car, but promotional campaigns

reframed it under one incredibly

important and distinct aspect. It was

small, compact, and thus it was

practical, and perfectly suited for

everyday city life. Communication

completely reframed a conventionally

terrible idea. You might have never

heard about the fiat or much about

Poland or never designed anything that

could cause a crisis despite what user

feedback probably makes you think. But I

believe that this story should still be

relatable. Why? Well, let me just ask

you. I would like to hear that from you.

Raise your hand if you ever pitched or

presented a design concept or a design

concept during a company meeting or

maybe during a job interview or in any

context

really. All right, nearly everyone

raised their hands because it's pretty

obvious that this is a fact of life.

Designers needs needs to present their

stuff. It's just a part of our daily

responsibilities.

But let me ask you now, if you ever

attended a design pitch or a design

presentation of any kind, but you didn't

actually pay attention to the person

speaking and instead you just worked on

something else, you message people, you

browse social

media. Okay, I'm not afraid to admit it

and I see that pretty much everyone here

isn't either. And I think it's pretty

safe to say that everyone does it. I

won't snitch any by the way but because

I think that everyone at the end of the

day thinks that when we present we look

like

this. We are enlightening the audience

with the brilliance of our

idea. But it's pretty clear that reality

is probably more like this.

Design should be about fun, creative

stuff, but more often than not, it's

just about boring internal company

politics. While a great idea is

important in a corporate environment,

it's not the quality or the research or

the visuals that decide whether the idea

will see the light of the day. It's just

how we sell it to key stakeholders or

even just fellow team members. And it's

a challenge because attention is a

commodity. There's only so much

attention our brains are willing to give

to anything when you've got infinite

other things to worry about. We have an

attention cap of 20 minutes. And as I'm

giving this talk right now, I fully

realize that I need to make every second

of it more engaging than the pocket

distractor you all

have. And that is the exact same problem

you need to solve when you pitch

designs. And with design, I believe

there is two very unique problems to

focus on. First, design is complex. It

requires a lot of brain juice to

comprehend a design concept. It's a lot

of mental work no one wants to do.

Second, and I don't know how to say it,

but design is just really boring. I'm

sorry to say this, but it's just this.

It's slow, methodical, and yes, you

guessed it right. I'm a little burn

burned out, but it's just rectangles on

screen. It's not exactly an exhilarating

drama. It's rectangles on screen. It

doesn't give you that rush of

dopamine. A successful design pitch

needs to understand and address these

issues. So first of all, why is design

difficult to comprehend? So cognitive

science says that the way we think about

problems and the way we talk about them

are

incompatible. Our brains think in

hierarchies. Uh when we have a product

solution in mind, it's not exactly an

orderly essay. It's a creative and

layered messy web of random interlin

concepts. Our idea as it exists in our

heads is

multi-dimensional. Speech on the other

hand is always one-dimensional. It's a

stream of words one after

another. Here lies the disconnect. How

do you structure a pitch of something

that is inherently complex with a tool,

your language, which is just unfit for

the job? Your pitch needs a structure.

Uh, I don't mean like a bullet point

list or some table. I mean, I mean an

overall arc, a narrative that translates

the multi-dimensional into

one-dimensional, a through line, a term

typically used for movies or books, but

I think we can apply it to presentations

as well. It's a threat which connects

each part of your presentation into one

cohesive narrative. It doesn't mean you

must stick to a single topic. It just

means that all the details you do take

have to connect back to that single

unifying theme.

for this talk. While I had a lot of kind

of random ideas, they all connect to a

through line. Make designs clear and

interesting in your pitch. Then I

translated that into the script and I

cut out anything that just didn't fit.

Although it really hurt a lot. All

right, before I move on to actual design

examples of this in practice, a quick

word from today's talk sponsor, NordVPN.

[Applause]

Okay, I'm just kidding. It's actually NP

bus. NPU is Nord's flagship password

manager. And by pure coincidence, I

actually work on it. It's pretty

straightforward. You enter a password,

it gets saved, you can reuse it later on

any device. There's way more features

storing personal info, financial

information, uh, pass keys, secure

notes, and there's an entire personal

cyber security suit to keep yourself

safe

online. This is Nerpass Homeview, and

it's deliberately simple. There's a

navigation on the left and a list of

items in the middle. If you want to move

your passwords or any other type of

information from another password

manager, you can actually do that using

the import feature which is currently

hidden deep in the settings. While the

feature is fantastic, the visibility of

it just sucks and it's no wonder we are

struggling with retention because of

it. However, what if we wanted to make

every new Nerd Pass user a regular Nerd

Pass user immediately after signup? What

if we took the import functionality out

of the settings into the home view and

turned it into a drag and drop field?

And that way more new users will see the

import feature immediately and

immediately know what to do. Why will it

succeed? Well, simply put, 100% of our

users, including any new one, see the

home view after signup. But 3 months

after that initial exposure, only 12% of

those users remain.

However, if we take a look at users who

do perform import, that number jumps

back to 40%. So, there is strong

correlation between import and

retention. And user research reveals why

that is. And it's kind of obvious.

People don't know import exists.

Manually adding existing data to NPass

is just a chore. No one's actually

willing to do that and give the app a

try because it's such a huge ask. But if

you clearly tell people and show them

you can just actually move over your

existing stuff into your NordPass

account, well they are a bit more

willing to give the amp a try and in the

best case scenario call it the best

thing since Ctrl

+V. All right. So what I did now is I

pitched to you a potential idea for a N

bus. Just to be clear, it's not

something we are actually planning. It's

purely hypothetical including all of the

data and research, but it's based on

reality.

Let's take a look at the structure. You

will quickly see there's a lot of

concepts I had in mind for this uh data,

user feedback, uh product context and so

on. But it's not random. It all connects

to a through line making users regular

users. I didn't for example discuss

interaction design like how simple a

drag and drop field is because one we

don't have the time and two it would

just feel a little bit out of place. But

if I were to choose improving the UX as

my through line, I would absolutely

cover more topics related to UX and UI

aspects in slides and on the script. I

consider the through line to be

fundamental for the overarching macro

level of any presentation actually

including this talk. But now let's take

a look at the micro level and focus on

how to structure an individual um point

or an individual argument within a slide

or a series of slides.

To do this, let's go back to this slide

and let's take a look at the script. So,

first I focus on the problem. The

visibility of import sucks and we are

struggling with user retention. Second,

the solution. We'd like to introduce a

drag and drop field into the home view.

Lastly, the benefit. This will work well

because every single new user sees the

home view after signup.

This is what I call the problem solution

benefit argument structure and it's an

example of a TLA

structure. WTF does this stand for?

Okay, so it's actually threeletter

acronyms. Simply

put,

it's simply put is a multi-step

structure with a distinct beginning,

middle, and end. And it's an acronym, so

it's easy to remember and rely on,

especially when speaking spontaneously.

And especially there when like me,

you're not a native English speaker. You

make a lot of grammar mistakes. You

really need to think about how to even

structure a sentence. In other words,

I'm a little dumber in English than in

Polish. What we just went through as a

PSB structure. And it's handy when you

want to explain things in a logical

manner while focusing on an issue and

its background. But a different TLA

structure like story inside action, SIA,

could be more personal and appeal to

emotions. I would for example recall the

story of how I initially didn't even

know that import exists despite

designing the

app. But the structure can really be

anything because the idea is here for

you to basically create your own TLAs,

your own acronyms which fit your

presentation style. You don't have to

and you shouldn't mention them

explicitly. I mean, we just went through

eee an example of what TLA is, an

explanation of what it is, and how to

execute it in

practice. And all of this is actually a

part of a bigger explanation where we

went through the

problem, the problem, the solution, and

you should know it by now, the

benefits. The brain is tuned to

comprehend uh stories and gesture things

better than complex detail. Structures

like the TLA or like the through line

follow this principle. So they are

easier for the audience to follow. But

they also make things easier for you

because they give you guidance on what

to include in your presentation. Uh this

talk had a lot of random ideas. Some car

from the 70s, cognitive science and

npass. But structures allowed me to

connect these frankly random things to

support one

takeaway. Structures make designs

clear. But even an intuitive

presentation can still be boring. And

boring things repel attention. A pitch

has to create intrigue. Conventionally,

impressive details such as data or

research should make your pitch stand

out. But surprisingly, the opposite is

actually true. When encountering new

concepts, we don't use the most advanced

parts of our brain which evolved for

complex analysis. We use the most

primitive parts of our brain which

evolved to keep us safe by reacting

quickly without any

analysis. So when presented with complex

details, the brain literally turns off

because it's literally being bored to

death. Otherwise, a pitch could take

hours, but we only have seconds to peak

that initial interest. So, a clear

structure needs to be spiced up starting

literally with a hook. It's a simple

opening statement which encapsulates the

main takeaway of your pitch. It's not

just a summary. It's a novel and

subversive framing of your big idea. For

example, uh earlier in my pitch, I

didn't start out by listing data or

technical details and I said, "What if

every new Nerd Pass user became a

regular Nerd Pass user immediately after

sign up?" This statement is obviously

impossible, but that's not really the

point. The point is to one amplify the

main benefit of my idea and two create

intrigue out of something ordinary. I

could have said here's how we can

redesign import, but that wouldn't

really sound that

exciting. I mean, even this talk, I

started out by saying ideas don't matter

and this little car proves it, which

sounds mental, but then again, it's the

hook. It's meant to capture your

attention by introducing the main topic

of the talk of the talk in an unorthodox

way. But why bring up some random car at

all? Wouldn't it be better to just jump

right into the actual meat and potatoes

of the talk? Well, maybe this story

might seem pointless. It's only loosely

connected to the theme of the talk. But

I would say that kind of is easier to

grasp than say neuroscience behind

communication.

Not only a simple story does a have a

much lower barrier to entry, it actually

kind of illustrates the point better

than any quote unquote impressive data

ever could. And that's the power of

storytelling, translating the abstract

and complex into something simple, into

something more human, more relatable,

and importantly for tackling boredom,

interesting to listen to. I'm certain

most talks here on config will probably

have some parable in the middle

specifically because of this exact

reason. Once you notice it, you can't go

back. But when it comes to design, it's

rectangles on screen. What kind of

stories can we have about that? Okay.

So, for example, when I worked on a yet

unannounced feature, the problem we run

into is that each country has a

different format for their ID cards.

Norway mentions height. In the EU, most

member states don't. In the US, there is

no like verbally issued actual ID card.

I didn't just want to mention this

problem. It was one of the main issues

of the project. I really wanted to

accentuate it. And to do this, I used

this wiki article. In Ireland, there was

a person called Prago Jazzy who was

declared the worst traffic violator

after racking up over 50 traffic

violations from all over the country.

The Irish police launched an

investigation into this person and this

investigation revealed that this person

is actually not even a

person. It's actually Praoast and it's

it literally just translates to driver's

license in

Polish. Okay. So, what happened is that

Ireland has a lot of Polish immigrants.

So, whenever one was pulled over and

they handed their documents over for

review, the Polish people couldn't

actually read the documents. So, they

just assumed that those two words, they

have to be unnamed because Polish looks

like gibberish.

I mean, look at my name again if you

don't believe

me. But eventually, because of silly

stories like this, the EU adopted a

single standardized format. The reason

I'm bringing the story up is simply if

an entire country can make such a huge

blunder, so might

we. But I realize that for most

projects, there won't really be an oddly

specific story to rely on. So what you

can do in you know what you can do

instead like I did in the pitch before

is use data which by itself is pretty

boring but you can connect it to user

feedback an actual human aspect behind

the numbers and that will be more than

enough to create some captivating

narrative and actually user feedback is

a treasure trove of stories you can just

plug into your pitch. Some of my

favorites from N include this guy who

apparently enjoys the app, but still not

so sadly tells me that I suck at my

job. This person who is complaining

about their wife and they still give us

five stars, which I'm not sure how to

interpret,

frankly. Or this person who's really

passionate about a single specific

aspect of one single specific feature,

which feedback is feedback at the end of

the day, I guess. I realized that these

examples are a bit wacky and I actually

had funnier and more absurd ones and

even an entire section about how

important humor is. But during

rehearsals, it turned out I'm not that

funny. So, I cut it out. Uh, and to be

honest, I cut like 80% of this talk.

It's the unfortunate reality of making a

slideex. It's just knowing what to put

on the slides.

So, for example, I forbid myself from

using the classic bullet point list and

title layout because I absolutely hate

it. I get it. It's simple. But having 50

separate slides cost literally as much

as having one slide. So, just break each

point down into an individual slide. And

to focus on the narration, I kept slides

to absolute minimum just a single word

or a single visual. to go between

different points. I used motion

transitions a lot because they're like

visual candy for your brain. It's just

something nice to look at as a yapsum

nonsense. And they also have the

practical purpose of maintaining

cohesion when I have a single point span

across multiple slides. If you don't

hate yourself, uh dissolving is good

enough, too. If I made a separate point,

I just cut into it to visually signify

that. And if I wanted to make a really

separate point, I changed the visuals

from light to

dark. Whenever I had a UI design, I

animated it uh to highlight something

that was important for the narration.

And that's actually why I would

recommend Figma slides. It's not because

I was forced to on the

backstage. It's just handy when you

already have designs in Figma to have

everything in one place.

All of these, the hook, the data, the

nice slides, the storytelling are meant

to make your pitch more engaging, more

interesting, more uh dopamine inducing

or at least a little bit less

boring. But sometimes I just leave my

slides blank so you can focus and look

at me. Sorry for

that. These methods work for me. I

consider them good practices. And if

you're on YouTube, you can actually just

go back and try to catch them in real

time. That's how we got the view count.

By the way, each presentation is

different though. I don't adhere to

these methods all the time and I don't

think it would make sense for anyone to

just copy them either. I consider them

more of a guideline because actually the

most interesting thing is authenticity.

So what I think you should do is just

try to find the best practices which

work for you and which fit your

presentation style. Some of which I hope

will be the things we discussed today

though. Thank you for listening and good

luck making your own slides in the

future.

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