Understanding Users: The UX Podcast

"This is an arms race and no one's taking their foot off the gas..."

This is the sixth in a series of bite-sized conversations with UX design and research leaders discussing a range of topics, recorded live at the UXDX conference in New York in May 2023.

In this episode John Crouch of Entropik shares his views on how a new generation of AI-based tooling can help us powerfully rethink, democratise and unlock the way product teams plan and conduct research with their users.   

He also reflects on the role of AI more generally in the design space and beyond: where we are with it and where we may be going.....

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

“What would I say is, first of all, be kind to yourself because that stuff is hard...It’s not a case of just going in and dialling it in every day...You require a deeper set of resilient skills to be able to survive in those kinds of places, especially if you've come from a place where design is accepted, that could be from university or academia, whatever it is...You have to really figure out where the opportunities lie for you to play, to deliver value to both the customer and the business…To start it off, I would really try and identify the least amount of effort that you can actually do to get the most amount of reward for the business..”

Gerry Scullion is a long-standing Podcast Host, and Founder of The Human Centered Design Network & the Makers & Doers School. 

He shares with me his fascinating journey into UX and Service Design during the early years of the 'Celtic Tiger', his advice on building individual resilience to overcome the challenges inherent in digitally immature organisations, and the need for us all to be mindful of not washing away years of hard-won UX expertise in the current goldrush for all things 'AI'.  

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

Ian Mulvany is Chief Technology Officer at the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Join me for a fascinating conversation with a seasoned technology leader building innovative and empowering healthcare products. 

"Technology as it is configured today....we are still at the foothills of understanding [how] this is going to drive our future economies... There are still hundreds of millions of people to come to the web and so when we think about healthcare, the future demand on healthcare is going to far outstrip the access to the number of doctors that are out there. So how do we equip people to work at what is sometimes called the 'top end of their licence', to be able to deliver that? I think digital has an immense role to play there. So I'm hugely excited about being in a place where the tools we build can help build that story."

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

 

 

This is the fifth in a series of bite-sized conversations with UX design and research leaders discussing a range of topics, recorded at the UXDX conference in New York in May 2023.

In this episode Megan Mathews, UX Research Lead at Docusign, discusses the challenges of deploying realistic and usable personas across organisations as part of the design process. We also - inevitably - discuss AI, and she shares her views how researchers can consider leveraging tools like ChatGPT to simplify and supercharge their research practice. 

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  

Mike Green

This is the fourth in a series of bite-sized conversations with UX design and research leaders discussing a range of topics, recorded at the UXDX conference in New York in May 2023.

In this episode author, speaker and Design Lead Kent Eisenhuth of Google shares his views on the importance of building diverse teams when designing and testing data visualisations, the potential for data 'sonification' to improve how we present users with data, and how AI might help designers make better choices for visualising data going forward. 

Kent also talks about his experiences and the lessons learned from building a community of practice within Google.   

His new book is available to purchase on Amazon: Drawing Product Ideas 

Two links which might be of interest:

Material Design Blog's Top Tips for Data Accessibility

Material Design System's Data Visualization Guidelines

 

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  

Mike Green

This is the third in a series of bite-sized conversations with UX design and research leaders discussing a range of topics, recorded live at the UXDX conference in New York in May 2023.

In this episode Prayag Narula of Marvin shares his views on how a new generation of AI-based tooling can help us powerfully rethink, democratise and unlock the way product teams plan and conduct research with their users.   

He also reflects on the role of AI more generally in the design space: where we are with it and where we may be going.....

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

Ian Pocock is MD of Research & Service Design at Transform.

In this wide-ranging discussion, Ian shares his views on how product teams should always maintain a diverse outlook to avoid falling into the trap of (re)creating homogenous products; we chat about the importance of maintaining an endlessly user-centred mindset; and he shares his experiences of using Lego within workshops as a way to powerfully unlock organisational hierarchies and democratise the design process. 

Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

My thanks again to our sponsor Oxford Insights. 

And if you have a moment I'd love to hear your feedback on the podcast, to help me improve it. 

This is the second in a series of bite-sized conversations with UX design and research leaders discussing a range of topics, recorded live at the UXDX conference in New York in May 2023.

In this episode Moshe Mikanovsky of Bain Public shares his thoughts on the importance of the right product management culture, and how product managers should go about choosing the tooling they use with their product teams. 

He also reflects on the role of AI in the design space: where we are with it and where we may be going.....

You can listen to Moshe's podcast here. 

 

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  

And thanks to our sponsor Oxford Insights.

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

This is the first in a series of bite-sized conversations with UX design and research leaders discussing a range of topics, recorded live at the UXDX conference in New York in May 2023.

In this episode Alex Wilson of T Rowe Price shares his experiences of working with a team to create an in-house design system, and the lessons they learned along the way. 

He also reflects on the role of AI in the design space: where we are with it and where we may be going.....

 

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  

And thanks to our sponsor Oxford Insights.

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

What is generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

What aspects of generative AI are academics conducting cutting edge research currently investigating?

How can UX researchers and designers apply lessons from this research in their own work?

And should we learn to love or fear AI?

 

In the second episode from the CHI2023 Human Computer Interaction conference in Hamburg, I chat in-person with five attendees about the event, their own research, and what the future may hold for generative AI. 

There isn’t possibly time to cover the vast range great talks and sessions at CHI2023, but I hope this will give you a flavour of what was on offer and what those who attended took away from the event.

 

Many thanks to my guests:

Eva Wolfangel 

Sophie Freeman

Kiwi Dai

Jake Rigby

and Torben Volkmann

 

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  

And thanks to our sponsor Oxford Insights.

 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

What is generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

What aspects of generative AI are academics conducting cutting edge research currently investigating?

How can UX researchers and designers apply lessons from this research in their own work?

And should we learn to love or fear AI?

 

In the first of two episodes from the CHI2023 Human Computer Interaction conference in Hamburg, I chat in-person with five attendees about the event, their own research, and what the future may hold for generative AI. 

There isn’t possibly time to cover the vast range great talks and sessions at CHI2023, but I hope this will give you a flavour of what was on offer and what those who attended took away from the event.

 

Many thanks to my guests:

Elizabeth Churchill

Anna Xyghou

Kars Alfrink

Kent Lyons

and Rgee Gallega

 

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  

And thanks to our sponsor Oxford Insights.

 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

Tina Ličková is a senior user researcher and strategist, and host of the UX Research Geeks podcast, where this conversation is also published. 

She originally began her career in marketing and later found her calling in User Experience. She co-founded and managed a service design studio that helped corporations as well as startups, and she has also led multidisciplinary teams, enabling them to build insight-driven products. 

This time, rather than just me asking the questions, Tina and I interview each other...about our own experiences in UX, about how and why we do what we do, about podcasting, and about the challenges of 'moving fast and breaking things' during digital transformation in organisations.

Finally, she plays my 3 card challenge to share her favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend she sees in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

My thanks again to our sponsor Ribbon. If you'd like to learn more, visit their website or reach out to their Founder Axel Thomson directly. 

If you have a moment, I'd love to hear your feedback on the podcast to help me improve it. 

And finally, if you'd like to support the podcast in a very modest way yourself and help me continue to producing regular content of the kind you'd like to hear, buying me a virtual coffee would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!

Peter Kariuki is a software engineer and entrepreneur, and the co-founder of the start-up SafeMotos, a motorcycle ride-sharing solution in Rwanda. He believes that technology can transform people’s lives and help solve Africa’s most pressing problems. 

In this episode, Peter and I talk about the context of digital design in Africa, how mobile phone coverage in Rwanda affected early design decisions within the SafeMotos app, and his belief in the importance of 'going out of your way' to user test your product in context - not just in a lab - to properly understand your users.  

Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees in the future. 

Peter is one of the keynote speakers at the CHI23 conference: https://chi2023.acm.org/program/keynotes/

You can find out more about Peter here: https://peterkariuki.com/

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

 

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

My thanks again to our sponsor Ribbon. If you'd like to learn more, visit their website or reach out to their Founder Axel Thomson directly. 

If you have a moment, I'd love to hear your feedback on the podcast to help me improve it. 

And finally, if you'd like to support the podcast in a very modest way yourself and help me continue to producing regular content of the kind you'd like to hear, buying me a virtual coffee would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!

 

Is there a way to enable a digital avatar to ask a user research questions in an exploratory or qualitative manner? One that elicits useful research insight that can be transcribed and analyzed in real time? If users are wary of the 'uncanny valley' of interacting with an avatar will they engage with it? And how smart can these things ultimately get?

Rob Symes is CEO at Fortell.ai.

In this episode he shares with me his digital career path as a serial entrepreneur and his founder journey so far with Fortell. We discuss the opportunities and risks posed by AI in trying to understand real human user motivation and needs, the resistance he's faced from some corners of the user research community, and the power of actually going out and 'sitting in the customer's shoes', despite all the benefits that remote research can bring. 

Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

 

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

My thanks again to our sponsor Ribbon. If you'd like to learn more, visit their website or reach out to their Founder Axel Thomson directly. 

If you have a moment, I'd love to hear your feedback on the podcast to help me improve it. 

And finally, if you'd like to support the podcast in a very modest way yourself and help me continue to producing regular content of the kind you'd like to hear, buying me a virtual coffee would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!

Axel Thomson is the CEO and Founder of Ribbon, a platform for rapid, continuous UX research that lets organisations do user interviews and in-product surveys in real time with customers, as they are actually using that organisation's website or apps.

In this episode, Axel and I chat about his career pivot from product manager to digital start-up founder, and how the challenges he faced as a product manager recruiting the right users to research with at pace and at scale led to the genesis of Ribbon. 

We discuss his views on the future of user research, the lessons he's learned as a founder, and the importance of resisting the urge to fill awkward silence when interviewing users...

Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

 

Mike Green

 

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

My thanks again to our sponsor Ribbon. If you'd like to learn more, visit their website or reach out to Axel directly. 

If you have a moment, I'd love to hear your feedback on the podcast to help me improve it. 

And finally, if you'd like to support the podcast in a very modest way yourself and help me continue to produce more of the kind of content you'd like to hear, buying me a virtual coffee would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

What's the best way to run an A/B test? How can you increase your customer conversion rate through UX research? What is funnel performance analysis? 

"If you listen to your users they will tell you what they want and then you have to be creative in.....the experience that generates value for them. This is what customer centricity is in my view - generating value so that users are willing to continue their engagement with you and continue their interaction. So qualitative analytics and UX research is what makes CRO effective..."

Ihor Sokol is Co-Founder of Conversion Rate Store, a Ukraine-based Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) agency.

Ihor is a CRO/UXO pro who has been in the CRO/UXO field for almost a decade. He co-founded a performance-based CRO agency ConversionRate.Store, leading CRO projects for companies like Microsoft, Comodo, Ukrainian International Airlines, and Depositphotos. He is a regular speaker at marketing conferences, and a lecturer of UX, quant analytics, and A/B testing at CRO Academy.   In this episode, Ihor and I discuss the CRO and UX research strategies he and his team use to drive up customer conversion rates for their clients, the challenge of finding the right CRO experts to work with him and his team, and the ways to convince sometimes sceptical clients of the value of CRO.   

Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

Alex Race is Head of Digital Customer Platforms at APM Terminals, part of Maersk group. 

Imagine that 3 months into a new role as Head of UX and Design within one of the world’s largest transportation and logistics companies your organisation gets attacked by international cyberterrorism. At a stroke, this takes out most of the company's IT infrastructure. The responsibility of rebuilding your digital customer channels in the aftermath falls to you.

What do you do? Where do you even start? 

This was the extraordinary personal and professional challenge that faced Alex Race in 2017.

In this episode, recorded after we met at UXDX 2022 in Dublin, he talks to me about the immediate after-effects of that cyberattack and how the organisation had to rebuild its digital capability pretty much from scratch. He also reflects on the unique career opportunities this presented him, allowing him to redirect their digital product strategy towards putting the user experience at the heart of everything they build.

Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees (or would like to see) in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

In the second episode recorded in-person at UXDX 2022 in Dublin, I chat in depth with six conference attendees from a broad spectrum of organisations to get them to reflect on the event, and hear more about why they came and what they will take away from it. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities they face in their own companies, and consider what in their view the future holds for User Experience as a discipline. 

Within this short episode there isn’t time to cover all the great talks and sessions at UXDX 2022, but it will give you a flavour of what was on offer and what those who attended took away from the event.

Many thanks to my guests:

Vanessa Sauer from Booking.com

Mike Brown from Reed

Duaa Gettani from Square

Noah Levin from Figma

AJ King from Ocado

Ashley May from Trainline

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

Mihaela Dragici is Associate Director at Volkswagen Digital Solutions. 

In this episode of Understanding Users, recorded in person at UXDX 2022 in Dublin, Mihaela and I discuss her work in an industry having to rapidly adapt to new challenges, and attempting to do that in an agile and digitally product-centric way.  

She reflects on why conferences like UXDX provide such a great opportunity to hear, exchange and learn from other organisations embarking on similar digital journeys, and we ruminate on the practical difficulties of conducting insightful user research in multiple languages across a large organisation with a global customer base...

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

"I always say [to my clients] let's research together. I've never seen impactful research done in a silo or in a vacuum...So I say let's face it together. I have multiple strategies to get stakeholders involved. The closer they get to that direct research process I have found, the more value everyone gets and the minute you get them into the process and that lightbulb goes off: 'Okay, why in the heck are we not talking to people? Why are we not already doing this as a regular part of our product DNA?', then the next time you want to do a study it's so much easier..."   Varun Murugesan is Cofounder and Head of Research at Apple and Banana and the author of Fruitful, a nifty new and growing online UX research library and toolkit of resources for researchers and UX teams.   

In this episode of Understanding Users, Varun discusses the important role quantitative research can play in product design. He shares his views on the potential pitfalls of UX bootcamps and he takes me through the birth of Fruitful, aimed at digital teams wanting to do better, faster and more effective research with their users. 

**There are 30 discount codes available to listeners of this podcast for the full suite of online Fruitful research guides and handbooks. Simply enter the discount code I mention in the intro to this episode to get 20% off when checking out! That's 20% off access to Fruitful for the first 30 people to redeem the code**

He also plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favoured technique and a trend he sees in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode.  

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

 

"The biggest [takeaway from the event for me] without question is around accessibility....Obviously we're used to the term 'accessibility'...in terms of...the technical standards..., things like screen readers [they] might need to use. But actually, it can be all kinds of things. It can be an empathy for someone's mental health. It could be someone with RSI, and actually starting to understand what good design for everyone actually means. And that seems to be a big challenge for businesses at the moment."

Andrew Machin is Founder and Director of Lion+Mason. 

This is the third and final episode of a three part mini-series covering Lion+Mason's UX Seminar at the Leeds Digital Festival 2022 entitled: 'How User Experience Design can successfully solve the digital challenges of today'. 

In this episode I chat with Andrew about the genesis of Lion+Mason as a digital product and service design agency, his reflections on the event they hosted at the LDF22 and his thoughts more broadly on the direction and current state of user experience and product design disciplines.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

"I love the fact that it's very much a peer-to-peer conference, that people are really transparent about sharing their learnings, their thoughts, and their experiences.... Everyone's incredibly friendly and open and really willing to engage and talk. It's a really nice place to 'temperature-check' what's going on [amongst] people who are delivering public sector services: what's on their mind, what are they thinking about..."

Reflections from an attendee at SD in Gov 2022.

 

In the third and final part of this mini-series covering the Service Design in Government conference held in Edinburgh in September 2022, I chat with some of the attendees to hear more about why they came, what they enjoyed and what they will take away from the sessions they attended and people they met. 

These conversations are with experienced UX practitioners and newbies alike, and even if you didn’t attend the event, I hope you’ll find something useful here to consider in your own work.

Within this short episode there isn’t time to cover all the fantastic talks and workshops, but it should give you a flavour of what was on offer and what those who attended took away from the event.

Many thanks to my guests:

Amanda Payne 

Jasmine Kendall

Tass Smith

Soh-Yon Park

Claudia Hopkins

Tom Morgan

Sadaf Uddin  

Hannah Whiteley

And thanks as well to Sarah Hill for editing this episode. 

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

"There's so much hard work we need to do just to keep on ploughing through the To-Do list of digital, like making more [public] services that work in better ways [and] fixing the data that sits underneath - we sometimes talk about 'fixing the plumbing' ....And that's essentially the plan for government for the next few years...But what I wanted to do is look further ahead, because I think... there's actually some more exciting things about how we take the the business models of the Internet era about how we relate to each other... in [a] social media way more horizontally than vertically; things like using platform approaches to think about the accessibility of government data and services to a wider community if we're interested in economic growth..." 

Paul Maltby, Chief Digital Officer at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Welcome to the second of this three-part mini-series, where I'm talking with the three inspiring keynote speakers at the in-person Service Design in Government (SD in Gov) conference held in Edinburgh in Scotland in September 2022.

I asked them to share their reflections on the conference, the challenges facing anyone involved in designing services in the public sector, and what they wanted attendees to take from their keynote addresses: 

Rebecca Kemp, Design Director at Future Foundry, speaks about her session entitled "User-centred design in public services - what now and what next?"

Shabira Papain, CEO of Democracy Club, shares her thoughts on the importance of inclusive design in public services in "Inclusive design: luxury or must have?"

Paul Maltby, Chief Digital Officer at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, reflects on his keynote entitled "Towards the next decade of digital public service reform"

 

My thanks to all my guests and to Sarah Hill for editing this episode.   

Coming soon is the third and final part of this mini-series, where I'll be talking with attendees and other speakers at the event to get their insights and diverse reflections. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

"My takeout from today is that you really need to listen to your users and do your research, and do regular research and get testing.... Because it's been quite obvious and apparent to me today that if that doesn't happen and you *think* you know your audience and you *think* you know the product that your users need, big mistakes can happen...": A comment from one event attendee.

This is the second of a three part mini-series of episodes about the recent Lion+Mason event at the Leeds Digital Festival 2022: 'How User Experience Design can successfully solve the digital challenges of today'. 

In this short episode we hear from a variety of attendees as they they reflect on what they learned from the sessions on the day and what relevant, practical tips they plan to take away to use in their own roles and organisations.

My thanks to all the attendees who agreed to share their thoughts, and to Milly Martin and Whitney Otchere from Lion+Mason for doing the recordings for me. 

Coming soon is the third and final part of the series, where I'll be talking with some of the Lion+Mason team about their plans for future events at next year's Leeds Digital Festival in 2023.  

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

 

 

 

 

Understanding Users is at the Leeds Digital Festival 2022!

Returning for its 7th year, the festival is an open, collaborative celebration of digital culture in all its forms and hosts a two-week line-up of world class tech content in September to showcase the city’s dynamic and growing digital sector.

In this short episode I'm talking to the speakers at an event entitled: 'How User Experience Design can successfully solve the digital challenges of today', taking place on 26 September. This free event is jointly hosted by local digital design agency Lion+Mason and Leeds Building Society, with leading specialists and peers discussing some of the key digital challenges facing businesses.

I chat with the speakers about what they will be covering in their talks and what relevant, practical tips they hope attendees can take away to use in their own organisations.

The speakers are:

Andy Curry, UX Director at Lion+Mason

Kelly Moran, Head of UX at Leeds Building Society 

Imran Afzal, UX Design Leader at Co-op

Paul Cook, Principal Consultant at Lion+Mason

If you wish to attend, you can register here. 

 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

Sophie Dennis is the conference programme chair of the SD in Gov (Service Design in Government) conference, held in Edinburgh, Scotland in September 2022. 

The conference is aimed at participants who manage, design or develop central and local government services, health and education services, emergency sector services, civic technologies and others including Government employees, consultants and design agencies.

In this episode Sophie and I chat about this year's conference, returning in-person again after running remotely in 2021 due to the pandemic. We discuss the inspiring keynote speakers, and the varied programme of engaging live sessions, interactive group sessions, and speaker Q&A - plus an all-important hallway track where attendees can meet and share experiences with fellow practitioners.

This is the first of three episodes featuring SD in Gov 2022. Join me again soon for Part Two when I'll be in-person at the conference, chatting to attendees and capturing their thoughts and reflections on what they've learned and how that can benefit them in their roles.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

 

 

I'm really excited to share this - it's something I've been wanting to do for ages!

In this episode of Understanding Users, I speak with four friends and fellow freelance digital folks, and who I've had the great privilege of working with. 

We reflect as a group on an (unnamed) large-scale UK government digital transformation project that we all worked on: what we did, how (and why) we did it, the challenges we faced and what we learned along the way. 

To what extent is an organisation ready to hear - and then act upon - problematic and challenging feedback from users of its services? How do you change long-established and deep-rooted processes within an organisation? Why are collaborative design workshops so powerful to the UX process? What can happen if you don't fully bring senior stakeholders with you on the journey? And why is the UK government's GDS assessment process so important in guiding teams to build digital services the right way?

My wonderful, highly experienced guests are:

Laura Cusack - Delivery Manager

Jon Sykes - Service Designer and UX Strategist

Ben Watson - Interaction Designer

Louisa Harper - Content Designer 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

 

Steve Bromley is a games user researcher. 

In this episode of Understanding Users, Steve talks of the fascinating and ‘unique production environment’’ of video games, along with varying UX maturity levels within the games industry, and the implications both of these have on how games user research is planned and carried out.

He discusses the importance of being able to conduct both generative and evaluative research during games development and the challenge, familiar to many UX teams, of ensuring that user insights are properly acknowledged and taken onboard by product teams in their product roadmaps.  

Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees (or would like to see) in the future. 

Read more about this work here and here.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

In this episode of Understanding Users, I have the pleasure of chatting to another international guest, this time based in Sydney, Australia.

Tim tells me about his career journey into UX from academia via experimental psychology and social and economic research, and he shares his views on the differences between strategic and tactical research approaches. He also discusses an unexpected - but beneficial - consequence of COVID-19 in allowing his organisation to rethink some of its UX team structure and working practices, and we chat about UX as a discipline in Australia.  

Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees (or would like to see) in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

Thanks for listening to this podcast. 

This time, I'd like to do something a little different - and reach out to you the listeners for your thoughts and feedback!

The show has been running since October 2021 and, in the spirit of practising what I preach as a User Researcher, I'd love to get your opinions and feedback on what you like, and don't like, about it - and how I can improve it :) 

If you're happy to provide your feedback, please fill in and submit this short survey:

https://forms.gle/dndWts7zMc6K7kJF8 

Feel free to be honest as you like.

It should take you no more than a few minutes. All answers are anonymous and will not be shared with, or accessible to, anyone other than myself. Many thanks in advance for your time and comments. 

And do keep listening for more candid and revealing interviews with seasoned UX professionals coming soon!

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

Vanessa Devine is a UX Designer and Project Manager at Cheeky Monkey Media in British Columbia, Canada. 

In this episode of Understanding Users, my first full-length interview with an international guest, Vanessa tells me about starting her UX career during a pandemic, the thrill of watching your own projects develop and actually go live, and the power of getting clients emotionally invested in the UX process.

We also discuss the UX scene in Canada, her frustration that so many UX books seem to retread familiar themes, and how she’s itching to know where UX goes from here. 

Finally, she plays my 3 card challenge to share her favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend she sees (or would like to see) in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

In the final part of this 4 episode mini-series covering the fully-remote UCD Gathering 2022, I chat with some of the conference attendees to hear more about why they came to the event, what they enjoyed about it and what they will take away from the busy 2 days of online sessions. 

I also ask them about the role they feel that user-centred design can and should play in ensuring the maximum impact on their product teams and end users.

These conversations are with experienced UX practitioners and newbies alike, and even if you didn’t attend the event I hope you’ll find something useful here to consider in your own work.

Within this short episode there isn’t time to cover all the fantastic talks and workshops that ran at UCD Gathering 2022, but I hope it gives you a flavour of what was on offer and what those who attended took away from the event.

Many thanks to my guests:

- Stéphanie Krus

- Jenny Björkman

- Barbara Mertlova

- Neil Turner

- Morgane Tanguy

- Sarah Hill

- Emma Brute

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

This is the final of a three-part episode in which I chat with the keynote speakers at the fully-remote 2022 User-Centred Design (UCD) Gathering conference. 

Eriol Fox is a Human Rights Centred Designer, who is currently Senior Designer @ Simply Secure and a PhD researcher @ Newcastle University. 

Eriol tells me about their career to date, the way they work, and outlines their keynote address, which is entitled "Centring human rights and trauma in design".

Finally, Eriol plays my 3 card challenge to share their favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend they hope to see more of in the future. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode.    Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.   [Please note: Access to the UCD Gathering conference site will be available for 30 days after the event for registered attendees, after which time conference materials and keynote talks will only be available via a password protected Vimeo playlist.] 

This is the second of a three-part episode in which I chat with the keynote speakers at the fully-remote 2022 User-Centred Design (UCD) Gathering conference. 

Ben Holliday is Chief Designer at TPXimpact.

Daniel Tuitt is a freelance Service Design Lead. 

Ben and Daniel talk to me about their careers to date, the way they work, and they both share more details of their keynote addresses.

Ben's keynote is entitled: "Multiplied by design", and Daniel's keynote is: "How complexity is shaping the world of designing good services".

They also play my 3 card challenge to share their favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend they see now or in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode.    Mike Green   This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.   [Please note: Access to the UCD Gathering conference site will be available for 30 days after the event for registered attendees, after which time conference materials and keynote talks will only be available via a password protected Vimeo playlist.] 

Welcome to the first of this three-part episode of Understanding Users, where I'm talking to the keynote speakers at the third and fully-remote 2022 User-Centred Design (UCD) Gathering conference.

I talk first with Jen Thomson, who is the Programme Committee Chair for UCD Gathering 2022. 

She introduces the conference and the four inspiring keynote speakers who I'm speaking to over the next few episodes of Understanding Users. She also discusses what attendees can expect from the conference in the way of engaging tutorials, live sessions, interactive group sessions, speaker Q&A - plus an all-important hallway track where people can meet and share experiences with fellow practitioners.

Then I talk with the first keynote speaker, Tim Yeo, who is Design Director @ IBM and who coaches introverts to have impact and influence without pretending to be extroverts at The Quiet Achiever. 

Tim tell me about his career to date, the way he works, and shares more details about his keynote address at UCD Gathering 2022, entitled: "Design leadership for introverts".

Finally, Tim plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he hopes to see more of in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

[Please note: Access to the UCD Gathering conference site will be available for 30 days after the event for registered attendees, after which time conference materials and keynote talks will only be available via a password protected Vimeo playlist.] 

Jackie Brownlee is a freelance Service Designer. 

In this episode of Understanding Users, Jackie discusses the importance of documenting what you're learning in the most impactful format to make sure it's seen by everyone both in and beyond a product team, and also remembering that not every user-centred problem can be solved immediately (or indeed at all) by a design team. 

She shares her thoughts on the merits of UK government digital service standards, both in creating usable constraints to design against and in holding services teams publicly to account. 

And she talks of the pleasure of going to work when you know what you are doing is measurably helping people in their lives. 

Finally, she plays my 3 card challenge to share her favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend she hopes to see (or not see!) more of in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

Scott Byrne-Fraser is Chief Metaverse Officer and Technical Co-founder at Hundo. 

In this episode of Understanding Users, Scott shares his views on how UX teams can have the most impact within their organisations by creating compelling narratives, based on solid research data, and getting them in front of the right stakeholders. He talks of the curiosity and empathy so crucial to the discipline, the messiness of real-world UX, and the need to stay comfortable being wrong about what you may think you know at the outset of a project.

And of course we discuss the Metaverse: what it is, what it could be, the barriers to entry, and what skills UX teams might need to develop in the new paradigm of Web3. 

Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a UX trend he sees (for better or worse) at the moment. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

So I thought I’d do something a little different for this episode... 

After 2 years of lockdowns and remote working, I actually went to a face-to-face UX event! Yes, I hopped in my car and drove down to UXCampBrighton on the south coast of the UK. It styles itself as an ‘unconference for people interested in all areas of user experience, from  interaction design to information architecture, user research to UX writing and everything in between.’ 

It’s the first time I’d been to this event, and I really enjoyed myself. There was a great turnout, some very thought-provoking sessions and a really positive, supportive atmosphere throughout the day.

Given the plethora of speakers and the variety of topics on offer, I wasn’t able to attend every session. What I did do though was persuade 5 attendees, all of who were giving talks on the day, to kindly give me 10 minutes of their time to chat about their own careers and routes into UX, their day-to-day work and the UX landscape as they see it. 

And of course, I asked each of them played my ‘3 card challenge’ to share their favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a UX trend they see - or would like to see (or not see) - in the future... ;) 

So a big thank you to: 

Stephen Tomlinson @ Inviqa

Laura Yarrow @ HM Land Registry

Chris Myhill @ Pixelfridge

Alex Baxevanis @ Reason

Al Power @ Dabapps

There’s a bit of background noise as these were recorded live on the day wherever we could find a quiet corner, but I hope you’ll agree that this only adds to the atmosphere. And as you’ll hear from my guests, there was palpable delight in actually being able to attend events like this in person after so long!

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

Tim Blass is Experience Design Lead at MMT Digital. 

In this episode of Understanding Users, Tim talks of the ‘aha’ moments of the experience design process and the power of continually asking ‘why?’ to ensure you get to the root cause of the problem you’re designing for.

He talks of the need for designers to continually stay curious and empathetic in their work, and reflects on the surprising prevalence of imposter syndrome within the design community.

He also considers the constraints that remote working places on those facilitating design workshops, particularly when trying to read a room full of participants who can’t interact physically and often won’t even turn their cameras on…

Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he hopes to see in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

Ben Watson is a freelance UX designer currently working with the London Borough of Sutton.

In this episode of Understanding Users, Ben shares his view of how technology should never be an end in itself, but rather a means of allowing users to achieve their desired goals. He portrays a key part of his role as being a facilitator of the flow of information between the user and the product team, and talks of the vital importance of dispersed development and UX teams being joined up as a product evolves.  

He also cautions against the danger of allowing research participants to ‘invent problems’ during the usability testing phase, and speaks of his firm belief that designers should always understand and keep in mind the medium they’re designing for, and its limitations.  

Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he hopes to see in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

Frances Maxwell is a Software Engineer at Skyscanner.

In this episode of Understanding Users, Frances shares her fascinating career path - including early stints at a violin dealer and even a Bollywood streaming site - and explains how and why her ‘itch to build things’ helped her make the pivot from senior UX roles into retraining as a software engineer. She talks of her love of code, the dangers of organisations treating UX as a separate silo and the importance of entire product teams normalising interaction with their users throughout the design and development process.

We also ponder on the frustrating lack of diversity in the tech world, and the risk of unconscious bias potentially creeping into product design as a result. 

Finally, she plays my 3 card challenge to share her favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend she hopes to see in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

Nick Grantham is Associate Director at Zebra People.

In this episode of Understanding Users, Nick talks about the incredible buoyancy of the current booming UX job market and the ever-growing demand for both product and service design roles. We discuss the importance of ‘going with your gut’ when job hunting, the dangers of being too purist in real-world UX projects, and we touch on some of the challenges posed to both contractors and recruiters by IR35 legislation.

We also reminisce about conducting experiments to blow up magnesium in chemistry classes at school, and their surprising parallels with UX portfolios…

He also plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

Andy Curry is UX Director at Lion+Mason.

In this episode of Understanding Users, Andy reminds us of the power of storytelling as one of UX’s most underrated skills and how the basics of observing users to help inform design decisions in essence dates back thousands of years. We discuss the impact of global lockdowns on carrying out ethnographic research, and of the epiphany moments of real insight he and his team gained previously from shadowing users during field visits: even going as far, in one case, as hoovering the carpet in an elderly user’s home!  

He also plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

Katie John is Head of User Research at Caution Your Blast. 

In this episode of Understanding Users, Katie shares her strong belief in technology as a force for good, and she talks about the importance of early generative research when designing digital services. 

She discusses how good user researchers should not be only fascinated by other people and their behaviour, but also self-reflective. Crucially, they also need to be great communicators and comfortable with uncertainty... 

Finally she plays my 3 card challenge to share her favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode.

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

Gavin Adam is a Product Lead at NHS Digital. 

In this episode of Understanding Users, Gav shares the collaborative techniques and product leadership experience he uses when building services for organisations like NHS Digital and HMRC to solve problems for their users. 

He discusses how experiencing agile product delivery in government opened his eyes to a better way of building digital products; the importance of digital service assessment within government; and the value that ‘hyperspecialists’ like UX designers and user researchers can bring to multi-disciplinary product teams. 

He also plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favoured technique and a trend he sees in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode.  

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

Dr. Jon Sykes is Head of Service Standards at National Highways.

In this third episode of Understanding Users, Jon and I chat about his fascinating and diverse career in service design; the power of collaborative design workshops, and the real benefit that using evidence-based user insight can bring when you’re trying to win round sceptical project stakeholders.  

He also plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favoured technique and a trend he sees in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

Tom Devlin is Founder and Principal UX Specialist at UserLab.

Tom and I talk about his career, the challenges and benefits of founding (and growing) your own UX agency, and why researchers should never be afraid of awkward silences. 

He also plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favoured technique and a trend he sees in the future. 

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode.  

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

Robin Potter is Lead UX Designer at Waitrose.

In this very first episode Robin talks to me about his varied digital career; his current design work with product teams at Waitrose; and how he ensures UX can have the most impact when building user-centred digital products and services.

He also discusses the trials and tribulations of user testing and offers some tips for aspiring UX designers.

Finally, he plays my ‘Three Card Challenge’ to share his favourite UX tool, favourite UX technique and a current trend he sees in user experience.  

Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode.  

Mike Green

This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

Hi, I’m Mike Green, a freelance user research lead and digital consultant based in the UK. 

Welcome to Understanding Users!

In this podcast series, I chat with digital experts from a variety of disciplines, including user research, UX and service design, software development and product management…. and there’s even a start-up founder or two.

I talk to them about how they came to be in their current roles, what they’ve learned along the way and the challenges they face in designing and building digital products and services with users in mind.

And while many of these conversations are recorded remotely, I’m also keen to get out into the wild and meet my guests face to face where possible, so in some episodes you’ll hear me prowling the corridors of UX conferences in different parts of the globe to get the views of speakers and attendees alike. 

So whether you’re simply an interested observer of all things UX, whether you want to make a professional move into this field, or whether you’re an experienced digital practitioner, I hope there’s something here to interest, engage and enlighten you. 

I usually publish episodes twice a month and it’s free to download from all major podcasting platforms including Apple, Google, Spotify, YouTube and Podbean. Simply search ‘Understanding User podcast’ or visit my website ‘Researchable.uk’.

These are intended to be relaxed, informal chats with professionals who are keen to share their experiences, so sit back and enjoy.

Thanks for listening.