User Defenders – UX Design & Personal Growth

Latest Episodes:

Mindful Technology with Liza Kindred Apr 09, 2018

Show notes

Artwork by Eli Jorgensen

Liza Kindred challenges us to be more mindful in how we use and design technology. She offers us a value system on how to do just that. She encourages us to slow down and incorporate meditation and mindfulness practices into our daily lives. She reminds us to connect more with the real humans physically present with us. She also inspires us to design for the world we want to live in.

Liza Kindred is an author, speaker, and the founder of Mindful Technology. She has spent twenty years working in fashion and in technology, eventually specializing in wearable tech. The more Liza helped develop technologies to be worn on our bodies, the more she became alarmed about the lack of attention being paid to whether these devices were serving us… or the other way around. As a meditation teacher, a student of Shambhala Buddhism, and a reiki practitioner, Liza has had a front row seat to to the realities of how drastic the difference is between how we want our lives to be shaped, and what kinds of technologies we continue to build. Liza has worked with some of the top companies in fashion and in tech, including VOGUE Magazine, Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdales, Hearst Media, Time Inc, Microsoft, Cisco, Vodafone, and Amazon. Liza has been written about by The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Financial Times, Fast Company Magazine, InStyle Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, Wall Street Journal Market Watch and many more.

Fun Fact: She’s been an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church for 15 years. She was internet-ordained to officiate at her friend’s wedding and it has built from there. All five couples she’s married are still together to this day!

What is Mindful Technology? (6:50)
Benefits of practicing Mindful Tech? (9:23)
How do you mitigate FOMO? (24:46)
Smartphone addiction in the home (30:10)
Implications if we don’t practice mindful tech? (40:52)
How do we design for human connection? (47:39)
How can we inspire others to be more mindful with tech? (56:56)
What would your last words be to designers influencing tech? (67:20)
Liza’s “Eff This” book (71:35)
Jason’s mindfulness tip (76:17)

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050: We Can Be Heroes with Jason Ogle Mar 26, 2018

Show notes

Artwork by Eli Jorgensen

Jason Ogle shows us how we can all be design superheroes with the right mindset. He reveals how grit trumps talent, every day. He reminds us of the peril that bad leadership and ego can have on a team and organization. He challenges us to never stop fighting for our users. He also inspires us to be a catalyst for our community.

Jason Ogle is human, not dancer. He fails early, and learns often. He’s a growth-minded, avid reader and listener whose vehicle is a rolling university, and a biz-minded, strategic designer who loves to make life better for his users. He’s a passionate user defender who fights for the users who are victims of bad design decisions. He’s an influential podcaster who uses the enchanting magic of audio to inspire and equip an audience of hungry and ambitious designers. He’s an evocative (often contrarian) writer who believeth in the power of the written word. He’s a self-aware and highly empathic servant-leader who believes that humans are so much more than resources. He’s also a loving husband, father of seven (one’s in heaven), and thankful believer who has a personal relationship with the Creator of the Universe. Fun fact: He once had to get a manicure to be a hand-model for a tech ad, and he has a rare essay titled “Altars of Satan” given to him and signed by Eldridge Cleaver.

Secret Identity (6:49)
Origin Story (11:14)
Biggest Superhero (21:31)
Biggest Failure (28:51)
Awkward Testing Story (35:06)
Design Superpower (40:35)
Design Kryptonite (43:04)
UX Superhero Name (49:16)
Fights for Users (57:09)
Habit of Success (61:28)
Recommended Book (67:10)
Best Advice (69:58)

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049: User Research War Stories with Steve Portigal Mar 12, 2018

Show notes

Artwork by Eli Jorgensen

Steve Portigal challenges us to enjoy the silence when interviewing people. He teaches us the importance of rapport-building, and offers sage advice on how to do it. He shows us how sticking with an interview even when it’s not going well can sometimes bring forth the best data. He also reveals how a little empathy can go a long way in field research.

Steve Portigal helps companies to think and act strategically when innovating with user insights. Based outside of San Francisco, he is principal of Portigal Consulting, and the author of two books: The classic Interviewing Users: How To Uncover Compelling Insights and the new, Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories. He’s also the host of the Dollars to Donuts podcast, where he interviews people who lead user research in their organizations. Steve is an accomplished presenter who speaks about culture, innovation, and design at companies and conferences across the globe. Steve hated Cats (the musical) – he’s okay with cats the animal, and he’s never seen Forrest Gump.

Secret Identity (8:08)
Origin Story (12:19)
What drives your curiosity? (24:53)
Roberta ‘call me Bert’s war story (29:28)
What’s Ethnography (the “E-word”) (38:32)
Rapport-building tips (46:51)
Brian’s war story (55:21)
UX Superhero Name (66:28)
Habit of Success (75:06)
Steve’s Corset War Story (78:39)
Best Advice (84:53)
Contact Info (88:33)

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048: Pick Yourself with Cassie McDaniel Feb 26, 2018

Show notes

Artwork by Eli Jorgensen

Cassie McDaniel inspires us to get away from the ‘pick me’ mindset, and to pick ourselves. She challenges us to be willing to kill our darlings so that something better can emerge. She teaches us the importance of knowing our values, but also embracing the fact that they are going to change. She also encourages us to not just do what we’re good at, but do what we enjoy.

Cassie McDaniel runs a small, ambitious, friendly design studio with her husband called Jane & Jury. As previous Design Director at the Mozilla Foundation, she led a team of designers on the organization’s advocacy and digital literacy fronts. She founded the interview series Women&&Tech and runs a creative event and workshop series called Paris Lectures. She grew up in Florida, jumped around in England, and is now based an hour outside Toronto in rural Ontario, where she is deeply invested in the roots she puts down into her community both locally and online. She’s both a national champion collegiate water polo player, and a published poet.

Secret Identity (8:27)
Origin Story (20:56)
Being Mozilla Foundation’s Design Director (24:09)
Biggest Failure (36:36)
Kill Your Darlings (40:24)
Design Superpower (52:54)
Habit of Success (62:59)
Invincible Resource (67:39)
Best Advice (70:33)

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Live Recording at An Event Apart Denver (2017) with Luke Wroblewski, Cassie McDaniel and Chris Coyier Feb 19, 2018

Show notes

Prefer to watch the video?

I was so delighted when at the beginning of 2017, Eric Meyer + Jeffrey Zeldman asked me if I wanted to record a live episode at my favorite design conference–An Event Apart.

User Defenders Live! was perfect—hilarious, honest, unpretentious, direct, and filled with memorable insights from four very different, very smart, very experienced designers.

— zeldman (@zeldman) December 12, 2017

Welcome to this very special episode where I felt like I needed to give a radio intro in front of a live audience! Lol, you’ll see what I mean.

Thankful to my hero Chris Coyier for saving the day and pulling me out of broadcast mode, into live mode. First time for everything!

I’m still in awe at my panel of bad design Avengers consisting of Cassie McDaniel, Chris Coyier, and Luke Wroblewski who each added so much value to the episode and attendees.

Oh, did I mention this session took place right after “Happy Hour”?

Please enjoy this very special, first-ever live broadcast of User Defender podcast!

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047: The Web is Neither Good or Bad…nor is it Neutral. It’s an Amplifier with Jeremy Keith Feb 12, 2018

Show notes

Artwork by Eli Jorgensen

Jeremy Keith reveals how the web is neither good or bad, nor neutral, but an amplifier. He inspires us to not let the future be just something that happens to us, but rather something we make with the small things we do today. He encourages us to build software ethically with our users’ psychological vulnerabilities in mind. He motivates us to not build on rented land, but to publish using the superpower of our own URLs. He also shows us how looking to the past is just as important as looking to the future.

Jeremy Keith lives in Brighton, England where he makes websites with the splendid design agency Clearleft. You may know him from such books as DOM Scripting, Bulletproof Ajax, HTML5 For Web Designers, and most recently Resilient Web Design. He curated the dConstruct conference for a number of years as well as Brighton SF, and he organised the world’s first Science Hack Day. He also made the website Huffduffer to allow people to make podcasts of found sounds—it’s like Instapaper for audio files. Hailing from Erin’s green shores, Jeremy maintains his link to Irish traditional music running the community site The Session. He also indulges a darker side of his bouzouki-playing in the band Salter Cane. Jeremy spends most of his time goofing off on the internet, documenting his time-wasting on adactio.com, where he has been writing for over fifteen years. A photograph he took appears in the film Iron Man.

Iron Man Photo Story (4:43)
On Net Neutrality (13:31)
What’s “Adactio”? (20:44)
Is the Internet Good or Evil? (24:41)
Hippocratic Oath for Software Designers (35:51)
Resilient Web Design (49:06)
Why do you Love the Web so Much? (54:26)
The Power and Generosity of the Community (63:05)
What Comes Next? (71:34)
Listener Question? (73:44)
Last Words to the Builders of the Web (74:18)
Contact Info (80:15)

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046: Good Design Favors the Curious with Joe Johnston Jan 29, 2018

Show notes

Artwork by Eli Jorgensen

Joe Johnston inspires us to embrace the superpowers of curiosity and empathy for our users and business owners. He motivates us to always stay curious, and ask why to get to the heart of the problem faster. He encourages us to make sure we use the shiny objects available to us to actually solve a problem.

Joe Johnston has over 18 years of digital experience with extensive knowledge creating digital and physical experiences. His skill set focuses on the user experience and the creation of these experiences to help clients quickly test & validate soultions. He’s adept at navigating the rapidly evolving and shifting technological landscape, making intuitive decisions amidst information-abundance, where sparse facts mingle loosely with data-drenched opinions. He’s completed a wide variety of projects, performing duties that include Experience Director/Advisor/Consultant, Digital Strategy, Experience Design,Service Design and front end development. He believes experience design is driven by moments of engagement, or touch points, between people, brands, ideas, emotions and memories that these moments create. My experience design philosophy is holistic in nature and takes into account all components required to create engaging and emotive experiences. Little known fact about Joe: He grew up on a farm, raising sheep during the day and hacking on a Commodore 64 at night.

“Merhl” Backstory (7:40)
Secret Identity (11:38)
Origin Story (13:46)
Empathy is Still Important (18:52)
Biggest Failure (24:46)
Design Leadership/Culture (28:41)
Awkward Testing Story (33:24)
Design Superpower (41:50)
Shiny Objects Syndrome (44:12)
UX of Ambient-Driven Experiences (50:46)
UX Superhero Name (56:14)
Habit of Success (57:11)
Invincible Resource (60:05)
Best Advice (61:00)
Contact Info (63:34)

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Designing for Designers: Building InVision Studio with Tom Giannattasio Jan 19, 2018

Show notes

“Designers are the architects of human behavior. With a consolidated tool like Studio, designers are going to be able to focus a lot more on designing…as they should.” — Tom Giannattasio

In this very special episode, I had the great privilege of talking to Studio mastermind Tom Giannattasio all about what went into building what’s being touted as “the world’ most powerful screen design tool”. Tom has an interesting designer origin story. In this interview, you’ll hear how his past experiences have really shaped him into the toolmaker superhero that he’s become.

In this compelling interview with Tom, you’ll hear him answer my questions such as:

What is Studio, and what makes it “the world’s most powerful screen design tool”?
Do designers really need another tool? What makes Studio different than all the others?
What lessons did you learn from Macaw that you’ve applied to Studio?
What’s it like designing for designers? What are the inherent challenges? What have been the rewards?
Much more!

TIMESTAMPS

Designing with colorblindness (2:30)
What is Macaw? (7:09)
What is Studio? (16:37)
Do we need another design tool? (22:08)
Where does Studio leave Craft & InVision tools? (27:30)
Lessons learned from Macaw in making of Studio (31:14)
What’s it like designing for designers? (34:44)
Coolest things you’ve seen folks do with Studio so far? (37:51)
How much does Studio cost? (41:17)
When is Studio available? (42:08)
Designers are becoming the architects of human behavior (43:35)
When we build (45:51)

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045: Criticize by Creating with Alexa Roman Jan 15, 2018

Show notes

Alexa Roman motivates us to prove the value of design and contribute to it every single day. She encourages us to always be learning new things since designers work across many different fields. She inspires us to get more excited about analytics and measuring our designs. She also challenges us to think about what we want on our tombstones…while we’re still this side up.

Alexa Roman is a Lead Product Designer at Burner, an app for creating on-demand, smart phone numbers. At Burner, she works on product and growth initiatives. Customer development, experiments and analytics are core to her design work. Previously, she was at Carbon Five where she worked on growth projects with teams at Nissan, Prosper and Joyable. In her spare time, Alexa volunteers with the League of Women Voters of Los Angeles, the Violence Intervention Program and resisterhoodLA.

Fun fact about Alexa is that when she worked in the Art Department for the TV show The Office, she became the resident IT person and would often be called to set to show the actors how to use their on-screen UI. When you see UI in a TV show, it’s nearly always a file that’s been programmed and you have to know the shortcuts to operate it. I did not, however, design that UI and it was terribly out of date even for the time we shot that show.

Secret Identity (7:49)
Origin Story (12:42)
What Will Your Tombstone Say? (19:25)
Biggest Failure (21:50)
Design Superpower (29:40)
How Important is Aesthetics? (35:52)
Awkward Testing Story (48:49)
Design Kryptonite (55:23)
UX Superhero Name (63:59)
Designing with Data (64:30)
Habit of Success (70:09)
Invincible Resource (71:39)
Recommended Book (73:28)
Best Advice (74:48)

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Feet on the Ground, Eyes on the Stars: The True Story of a Real Rocket Man with Jim Ogle (8/3/37 – 8/15/20) Nov 21, 2017

Show notes

Artwork by Eli Jorgensen

Welcome to this very special, quite literally out of this world episode with my father, G.A. “Jim” Ogle. You know how they say ‘it doesn’t take a rocket scientist’? Well, my late, great Dad was one. I flew out to he and my mom’s beautiful river resort home on the Space Coast to celebrate his 80th birthday back in 2017. I’ll be forever grateful for the nearly three hours he spent letting me capture his super-compelling life and career story. Rest in His peace beyond the stars and atmosphere, Pop.

BIO

Jim Ogle fell in love with airplanes at the early age of 8 years old. The circumstances that presented this initial passion were far from ideal.

He was recovering in a hospital bed following a 7-hour surgery to essentially re-attach his badly mangled right leg from a horrible school bus wreck. He awoke from the operation to see a model airplane hanging down from a wooden structure over his bed that was to be used as a traction device to slowly pull his left leg back into place. It was broken at the hip and rammed almost three inches into his lower torso.

His injuries would prevent him from being a pilot in the Air Force. But this reality would not deter him from being in the air with airplanes because 12 years later he became involved in space with missiles and rockets on his first job at Cape Canaveral, Florida in 1958. This was the beginning of his 51-year career of being associated with every manned moon mission and all 135 Space Shuttle missions. He finally got his layoff notice along with 8,000 other space workers following the final Shuttle mission, STS-135, in July 2011.

He likes to tell folks questioning his unusual longevity in this field that he was fortunate to be “in the right place at the right time and the right age.” He considers himself blessed for having had the opportunity to be a part of this truly exciting time in America’s beginnings in space.

Fun fact: He requires 10 lemons and multiple servings of tartar sauce with every seafood meal. The last lemon squeeze after the meal is used to clean his hands!