UI Breakfast: UI/UX Design and Product Strategy

Latest Episodes:

Episode 54: Documenting UX Reviews with Jean-Michel Lacroix Mar 23, 2017

Show notes

We all understand the value of UX reviews (also known as usability reviews or UI/UX audits). But how do you document your expert opinion? Today our guest is Jean-Michel Lacroix — co-founder of Capian, a tool for conducting usability reviews. You'll learn what hardships UX consultants face while documenting their reviews, why enterprise clients always ask for PDF reports, and why branding matters.

Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Show Notes

Don't Make Me Think — a book by Steve Krug
InVision, UXCheck (Chrome extension) — other tools that can be used for UX reviews
Capian — the tool for UX reviews we're talking about. Use your special promocode UIBREAKFAST to get 10% off!
Jean-Michel's website
Follow Jean-Michel on Twitter: @jmlacroix

Today's Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Tiny Reminder — a simple productivity tool for freelancers and consultants. Need content or files on time? Tiny Reminder will play "bad cop" for you with friendly notifications! It works great for collecting content, feedback, files, bios, or anything else. What's best, this tool is forever free — sign up today!

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Episode 53: Trust Marketing with Paul Jarvis Mar 16, 2017

Show notes

How do you grow an audience of true fans who trust you? How do you define your tribe? Our guest today is Paul Jarvis — a famous designer, author, and entrepreneur. Paul talks about the four components of his marketing formula and his unique way of doing business online. You'll learn how to build trust, fearlessly launch products, manage expectations, and grow a focused mailing list.

Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Show Notes

Creative Class, Chimp Essentials, Grow Your Audience — Paul's most famous courses
Paul's books on Amazon
WP Complete, ofCourseBooks (now sold) — Paul's software products
Paul's website
Use your special promocode UIBREAKFAST to get 20% off Grow Your Audience course!
Follow Paul on Twitter: @pjrvs

Today's Sponsor

Interested in sponsoring an episode? Learn more here.

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Episode 52: Data-Driven Design with Brent Palmer Mar 09, 2017

Show notes

How do you make sure your design efforts are effective? There's no bigger mistake than just guess! Brent Palmer, a design lead at Zendesk, walks us through the tools and methods for data-driven design. You'll learn how to approach customer research the right way, why testing is important, and how to deal with the research results.

Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play Music.

Show Notes

Zendesk — the company where Brent works
Heap, Google Analytics, Mixpanel — common analytics tools
Usability Hub — remote user testing for quick design validation
InVision — a prototyping tool
Zoom — a video conferencing tool for conducting 1-on-1 sessions
Confluence — a documentation tool for storing results of UX research (also Google Drive, Slack)
Inspectlet — a tool for heatmaps
Pendo, Intercom — tools for customer research
Zendesk Garden — a public library of user interface components for Zendesk products
Follow Brent on Medium
Brent's website
Conferences where Brent is speaking this year: DIBI 2017, Design Matters 2017
Follow Brent on Twitter: @brentpalmer

Today's Sponsor

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Reviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes.

Episode 51: Your Productivity Toolbox with Francesca Geens Mar 03, 2017

Show notes

There are thousands of apps out there, dozens for every possible task. But how do you pick the right tools? How do you put together a toolbox that fits your own work process? Our guest today is Francesca Geens, the founder of Digital Dragonfly — a technology and productivity consultancy. We review the principles of human productivity, and then discuss popular tools for to-do lists, email, project management, and CRM systems.

Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Show Notes

Digital Dragonfly — Francesca's technology and productivity consultancy
Asana, Trello — tools for to-do list management
Unroll.me — a tool that rolls up your newsletters into a single daily email
Feedly — RSS news reader
Asana, Basecamp, Slack — project management tools for teams
Evernote — a note-taking app
Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive — cloud storage solutions
Capsule CRM, Nimble CRM, PipeDrive, OnePageCRM, Insightly — CRM systems
Francesca's Productivity Teardown
Follow Francesca on Twitter: @f_dragonfly

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Episode 50: Becoming a Brand Evangelist with Dennis Field Feb 24, 2017

Show notes

It's episode fifty today! For this little anniversary, I invited my very first guest from episode one. Dennis Field is a famous design educator and entrepreneur, and also a brand evangelist at InVision. Today we discuss how creative individuals can partner up with large companies and become their evangelists. You'll learn how such relationships benefit both parties, how everything works, and how to get started with the brand you love.

Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Show Notes

Our first episode with Dennis (dated October 17, 2014)
InVision — the company Dennis works for
The Pipe — Dennis's book project
Greenline Creative — Dennis's design studio
The Designer's Handbook — upcoming book by Dennis Field (welcome to sign up for updates)
Design Disruptors — a documentary by InVision
Dennis's website
Request a call with Dennis via Clarity.fm
Follow Dennis on Twitter: @dennis_field

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Episode 49: Behind the Scenes of Tiny Reminder Launch with Benedikt Deicke Feb 12, 2017

Show notes

In this special behind-the-scenes episode you'll meet Benedikt Decke who helped me build and launch Tiny Reminder (the new productivity tool for freelancers and consultants). Benedikt is a talented software engineer, awesome consultant, and founder of of Stage CMS. We talk through the entire process "from idea to launch" — how we determined the scope for the MVP, how we launched it, why we switched to the freemium model, and what we plan to do in the future.

Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Show Notes

Tiny Reminder — the web application for freelancers and consultants we're talking about. Sign up today — it's free forever!
Stage CMS — Benedikt's software product
FemtoConf — the awesome conference in Darmstadt, Germany, organized by Benedikt Deicke and Christoph Engelhardt
Brian Balfour talks on how to nail freemium in SaaS
Benedikt's consulting website
Follow Benedikt on Twitter: @benediktdeicke

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Reviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes.

Episode 48: Reverse-Engineering Your Life & Work with Drew Thomas Feb 03, 2017

Show notes

Today we'll talk about reverse-engineering. You can apply this thought process virtually anywhere — in choosing the right client or the right lifestyle. Our special guest is Drew Thomas, an ecommerce expert and seasoned entrepreneur. We talk about our agency experiences in the past, and why we can "do what we want" these days. You'll learn how to start with the most important criteria, and work your way backwards to the desired client or lifestyle.

Download the MP3 audio file: right-click here and choose Save As.

Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Show Notes

Drew's website
Episode 43: User Experience in Ecommerce with Kurt Elster
Shopify, Squarespace eCommerce — popular ecommerce solutions
How I Reverse Engineered a Consulting Niche — Drew's article
Follow Drew on Twitter: @truedrewco

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Reviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes.

Episode 47: Using Pattern Libraries in Web Design with Laura Elizabeth Jan 27, 2017

Show notes

Pattern libraries can help you streamline the design process and build a flexible system (instead of static pages). Today we're exploring this concept with Laura Elizabeth — a fantastic designer, writer & speaker. You'll learn how to plan and build a pattern library, how to document it, and how to make your clients fall in love with the result.

Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Show Notes

Double Your Freelancing — the website Laura is now redesigning with pattern libraries
Design Academy — Laura's design course for developers
Style Tiles — another concept for web design process
Styleguides.io — great collection of website style guides
Episode 26: Bridging the Gap Between Designers and Developers with Roger Dudler — our episode with the founder of Frontify
Laura's official website
Client Portal — Laura's product that helps keep all client deliverables in one place (use your special promocode uibreakfast to get $100 off)
Follow Laura on Twitter: @laurium

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Reviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes.

Episode 46: How to Find Your Mentor with Greg Gilbert Jan 05, 2017

Show notes

How do you go about finding a mentor? Today our guest is Greg Gilbert, a serial entrepreneur and founder of multiple companies. Greg shares his great story of being mentored and becoming a mentor himself. You'll learn why mentoring is different from coaching or mastermind groups, how to find the right person, and how to start the relationship at the right terms.

Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Show Notes

Nerdy Makers — Greg's company
Capsule — Greg's coworking space in Uppsala, Sweden
The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz — Greg's favorite business book
Greg's website
Follow Greg on Twitter: @gregoiregilbert

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Reviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes.

Episode 45: SaaS Email Marketing Secrets with Christoph Engelhardt Dec 29, 2016

Show notes

Email marketing for software products differs from classic content marketing. We're looking into that today! Our special guest is Christoph Engelhardt, the founder of LinksSpy and the author of SaaS Email Marketing Handbook. You'll learn about the best practices, what campaigns work best during different lifecycle stages, and how users communicate with your software through transactional emails and reports.

Download the MP3 audio file: right-click here and choose Save As.

Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Show Notes

LinksSpy — Christoph's SaaS product
Moz — Christoph's previous place of work
FirstOfficer, Churn Buster, GroupBuzz — SaaS products we mention as examples
MailChimp, Drip, Intercom — popular email tools
SaaS Email Marketing Handbook — Christoph's new book (the link includes a special 25% discount)
Follow Christoph on Twitter: @itengelhardt

Leave a Review

Reviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes.