UX Podcast

Sarah Doody joined us to talk about anticipatory design. What if we didn’t need to find and search through information to help us make decisions. What if instead, information came to us at the right time and with the right context? Professor Andrea Resmini discusses mapping cross-channel ecosystems. We asked Andrea to explain what cross-channel ecosystems...

In a chat based world, the words are the UI. Rather than tapping or clicking, we’re writing and responding. Daniel Harvey talked to us about chatbots and AI and how we are heading for a future where appstores are going to be replaced by botstores.

We don’t generally have a problem considering objects from the past. Speculating about what they are and how they might have been used. We could look at artefacts from the future in a similar manner. We talk to Leo Frishberg about presumptive design and how you can use that as a provocative design research tool.

Episode 141 is a link show. James and Per discuss three articles that have grabbed their attention. Design standards, form validation, and prototyping with chatbots.

Donna Lichaw is the author of The User’s Journey. In the book Donna explains the idea of storymapping. How, when, and why to use narrative structure in your design work. During our chat we learn more about narrative structure, storymapping, “origin stories” and how brand stories and storymapping are connected.

In part 2 of our two part chat with Melissa Perri and Evgenia Grinblo about education and leadership, we ask why are we doing all this stuff? The importance of metrics, incentives and leadership. Caring about your team and keeping them on track.

We found ourselves talking separately to Melissa Perri and Evgenia Grinblo about education within the UX and design industry. So we brought them both into the same room and pressed record.

We talk to Andy Budd about design leadership. As our relatively young industry matures and expands, many people are moving from being UX practitioners to being UX leaders, or design leaders.

“Unfold your brain – Skyrocket your creative ability” was the title of Denise Jacobs’s highly interactive workshop at UXLx this spring. We talked to Denise about how to banish our inner critic and the mental blocks that get in the way of creative thinking. We also talked about how you can improve focus and get your brain into a...

We live in a bit of a western-world UX-bubble. Stephanie Rieger joined us in the first half of this episode to give us a glimpse into how things are in Asia. Amongst other things we talk about social media as an eCommerce platform and the dominance of marketplaces.

Since its launch in 2014, Google’s design framework – Material Design has been gathering momentum and spreading beyond its original focus of mobile applications.

At UXLx James and Per both attended Val Head’s workshop to learn more about animation in online interfaces. The workshop gave us some excellent examples and Val had us experiment with prototyping animation. In this interview we learn a bit more about animation best practices and how animation for example can help with spatial orientation, feedback...

James, Per and Danwei open the video channels for the 7th UX Podcast Listener phone-in. On a warm Friday afternoon in June we took questions and calls from listeners. We’ve extracted some highlights from the 2-hour live session and condensed them into this regular 30 minute episode. The topics covered in this listener phone-in were: Guerrilla research, ridiculous...

Alan Cooper was the closing keynote on the speaker day at UXLx 2016. Alan, the creator of visual basic and co-founder of design agency Cooper, hasn’t made so many public appearances in recent years. Instead he’s been concentrating on running Monkey Ranch – his farmstead in the hills of Petaluma, California. In part two of our two-part interview, Alan discusses...

Alan Cooper was the closing keynote on the speaker day at UXLx 2016. Alan, the creator of visual basic and co-founder of design agency Cooper, hasn’t made so many public appearances in recent years. Instead he’s been concentrating on running Monkey Ranch – his farmstead in the hills of Petaluma, California. His keynote took us all a bit...

We talk to Lou Rosenfeld about the 4th edition of Information Architecture (“The Polar Bear book”) and how the fields of IA and UX have evolved over the years since the book first came out. We also talk about going beyond user research and the importance of combining your research with other data points.

In our listener survey we ask the question: What is the biggest occupational challenge facing you right now? Over the past few surveys we’ve gather quite a number of responses to that question. In this episode we take a look at some of the challenges you say that you face, and even try to give some...

A linkshow. James and Per discuss three articles that have grabbed their attention. The first article is Users always choose the path of least resistance by Paul Boag. Paul says that users will always take the easy option so to maintain a competitive advantage, we need to focus on simplicity. The second article is Transitions...

Don Norman is without a doubt one of the most influential voices within the UX and design industry and also the cognitive sciences. Don produced some of the earliest literature about human-centered design within the digital space – he also coined the term “user experience” whilst working at Apple. In part 2 of our conversation with...

Don Norman is without a doubt one of the most influential voices within the UX and design industry and also the cognitive sciences. Don produced some of the earliest literature about human-centered design within the digital space – he also coined the term “user experience” whilst at Apple.

James, Per and Danwei open the video channels for the 6th UX Podcast Listener phone-in. We’ve pulled out the highlights from the live session and made them into 2 separate episodes.

James, Per and Danwei open the video channels for the 6th UX Podcast Listener phone-in. On a Friday afternoon in March we took questions and calls from listeners. We’ve pulled out the highlights from the live session and made them into 2 separate episodes. The topics covered in part 1 of this two-part phone-in are AI,...

We talk to Amber Case, cyborg anthropologist and UX designer. We chat about the ideas expressed in Amber’s popular TED talk “We are all cyborgs now” before turning our attention to the notion of calm technology.

Spawned from his keen interest in sci-fi interfaces Chris Noessel is passionate about the concept of agentive technology; computers doing things on our behalf. Computers may do things we don’t want to do or ourselves, things we don’t know how how to do or things we’ve never done before. The trick of course is for...

Melissa Perri has a background as both a product manager and a UX-er. We learn more about the overlap between the two disciplines and discuss some of the issues surrounding their convergence. Melissa also shared some advice about applying lean methodologies to your organisation including working with hypotheses and building to learn.

We talk to Tom Greever about Articulating Design Decisions. How do we talk about our designs effectively with stakeholders? Every designer has to explain (and justify) their design decisions to non-designers but what are the skills tactics and methods that are needed to pull this off in a way that opens the door for your project to...

Sometimes we just run on auto-pilot. Male and Female. Two genders. His and Hers. A simple, polarised, view. When gender is implemented this way in websites and apps, it can not only lead to individuals feeling excluded but also cause emotional distress. We talk to Sara Lerén about being inclusive – how we can kick old...

It’s so easy to add a little rectangle to a wireframe, but what are the consequences of adding an image to your design? Are images good or bad for UX? How can we improve our design processes so that we take the impact of images properly into account? In this topic show Per and James look into...

James, Per and Danwei Tran Luciani open the video channels for the 5th UX Podcast Listener phone-in. The theme for this phone-in is The Demise of UX. Our guests in this Christmas phone-in ended up being James Mole McConnell, Craig Sullivan and Mike Atherton.

A linkshow. James and Per discuss three articles that have grabbed their attention.

One of the problems with user interfaces is that it often feels like we’re serving the machines rather than them serving us. They demand so much care and need so much attention. We are joined by Andy Goodman to talk about Zero UI and the challenges that lie ahead for us in regard to user interfaces. The movement...

The second of our two shows featuring interviews from Interact London 2015. We talk to Jim Kalbach, Vanessa Kirby, Craig Sullivan and Sofia Hussain.

Our first of two shows featuring interviews from Interact London 2015 has a bit of a brain-related theme to it. We talk to Steve Portigal about mindfulness, self-insight and presence and how these impact on your work as a designer.

A linkshow. James and Per discuss three articles that have caught their attention. The first article is Who Needs UX Strategy by Paul Bryan. Secondly we look at 7 things that make it harder to manage your multinational websites by Lise Bissonnette Janody. Last but not least we discuss Meta-moments, thoughtfulness by design by Andrew Grimes...

We were lucky enough to meet up with Whitney Hess during her summer vacation in Sweden. We talk to Whitney about her journey from “producer of wireframes” to coaching UX-ers. How to you design yourself? How do you give yourself permission to do your best work? “You need to stop doing the things you don’t want...

Simon Norris, CEO of Nomensa joins us to chat about UX strategy. We look back over how digital has matured during the last 15 years and how the world today is so utterly different to how we thought it would be back then. Simon differentiates between micro and macro UX and explains how UX by...

“Thank you for ginning us!” In the style of a radio phone-in, James and Per open the door and invite in you, the listener. Our guests in our fourth listener phone-in ended up being Heather Burns, Simon Kemp, and Artem Pereverzev.

Lisa Welchman was the opening speaker on the conference day of UXLx 2015. She posed the question Are we Architecting the Information Age? We talk to her about our responsibility as designers and creators of digital products, services and information. We discuss the need to take a holistic view and have the confidence to stand up for what we...

Many of us suffer from imposter syndrome. Everyone else is better than me. This was just luck. Good timing. Soon they’re going to find out that I’m faking it. We talk to Lori Cavallucci and Amy Silvers to learn more about what is it and how it effects us. Why does our branch in particular...

A triple set of interviews with Nicole Fenton, Alastair Somerville and Mike Atherton recorded at UXLx 2015. Nicole is an editor, writer, content strategist. Alastair is a specialist in sensory cognition and accessibility. Mike is a user experience designer and information architect.

A conversation with Abby Covert and Andrew Hinton about dealing with digital change. Recorded at UXLx 2015. Abby is an independent information architect and author of How to Make Sense of Any Mess. Andrew is also an information architect and author of Understanding Context.

A Linkshow. James and Per discuss three recent articles they have found on their digital travels. Our first article is Designing with Analytics by one of our previous guests Pamela Pavliscak. Hands on advice for using web analytics for research. Our second article is What is Zero UI? John Brownlee’s Coverage of Andy Goodman‘s talk...

Interviews with Adrian Howard and Mike Beasley recorded at UXLx 2015. Adrian regularly teaches and speaks on integrating Lean, UX and Agile methods and Mike is the author of Practical Web Analytics for User Experience.

An interview with Josh Clark and Stephen Hay recorded at UXLx 2015. Josh is the man behind Big Medium, formally Globalmoxie, and was the closing keynote speaker at UXLx. Stephen Hay is the author of Responsive Design Workflow, designer, developer and magician.

Happy 4th Birthday UX Podcast! We happen to turn 4 at the same time as reaching the milestone of 100 episodes. In this birthday special we really do sing happy birthday, then we invite you to join us on a trip down memory lane.

Three articles stumbled upon recently by James and Per are up for discussion in this Link Show. First up – Why It’s Totally Okay to Use a Hamburger Icon. Or rather, why you should support top tasks with your designs. Second – Content first design. Using content prototypes to perfect your content. Third and finally –...

UX Podcast attended the biggest UX conference in Sweden to date with over 850 attendees. “From Business To Buttons” was held on 21 April 2015. We managed to talk to three of the speakers on the day: Pamela Pavliscak, Cindy Alvarez and Mike Monteiro. To round up the day we were joined by Ben Sauer, UX Designer at Clearleft.

We talk to Joe Leech about psychology for designers and bullshit science. We debunk some myths and “rules” that come across as truths.

Episode 96 is a linkshow. James and Per discuss three articles they’ve stumbled upon whilst roaming the internet.

The father of the term Responsive Web Design, Ethan Marcotte, joins us for a chat. We talk, naturally, about responsive web design. How it came about, where it is today and where it’s heading.