User Defenders – UX Design & Personal Growth

Latest Episodes:

038: We Need More Crappy Work with Femke Jul 24, 2017

Show notes

Femke encourages us to take pride in our process by being willing to show our crappy work. She shows us how every small step can lead to something big. She teaches us how we can achieve anything in life, if we’re willing to take action. She also challenges us to wake up early to get the stuff done that we “never have time for”.

Femke is a designer, writer and podcaster currently working at Atomic–an online prototyping tool for teams. In her podcast, Design Life, she talks about design, and side projects for motivated creators. When she’s not talking about design, she’s writing weekly about creative self-help for her newsletter. She also played classical violin for 15 years.

TIMESTAMPS

Secret Identity/Origin Story (2:26)
Biggest Superhero (9:52)
Biggest Failure (13:25)
Design & Personal Growth (19:28)
Crappy Work Article (23:36)
Design Superpower (36:56)
Book Recommendation (40:07)
Design Kryptonite (43:47)
Habit Of Success (47:05)
Stay Inspired (53:26)
Invincible Resource (55:09)
Best Advice (57:56)
Contact Info (60:32)

LINKS Femke’s Twitter Femke’s Website Femke’s Mailing List Femke’s Creative Series Interviews

ARTICLES We Need More $h!††y Work Design is Messy & Embarrassing…but You’d Never Know it Why I Wake Up Early An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

RESOURCE Atomic prototyping tool

BOOKS Start with Why The Power of Habit

VIDEO Why You Need to Fail by Derek Sivers

This episode is brought to you by Adobe, makers of XD

Try XD for Free

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USE YOUR SUPERPOWER OF SUPPORT Here’s your chance to use your superpower of support. Don’t rely on telepathy alone! If you’re enjoying the show, would you take two minutes and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts? I’d also be willing to remove my cloak of invisibility from your inbox if you’d subscribe to the newsletter for superguest announcements and more, occasionally.

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037: Design in Life or Death Situations with Andy Vitale Jul 10, 2017

Show notes

Andy Vitale is using design to literally save lives. He shows us how empathy is the key to any product’s success. He motivates us to stay driven, and bring our own seat to the table. He shows us how true leaders take the time to understand what drives their team. He inspires us to always keep the user at the forefront of our designs, and to be comfortable with discomfort.

ABOUT ANDY Andy Vitale is a UX Design Principal at 3M, where he is focused on translating human insights into actionable experiences in order to improve the healthcare industry. He is responsible for leading a team that creates immersive, emotional experiences for 3M Health Care’s enterprise solutions. With 17 years of experience in the design industry, Andy has held multiple roles as a designer, entrepreneur, education department chair and team leader. He’s developed strategies and design solutions for diverse organizations ranging from startups to Fortune-ranked companies. He’s a relentless user experience evangelist, driven by a shared vision and a user-centered passion. Fun Fact: He was involved in the professional wrestling business for quite a long time, starting out as a wrestler and working his way to behind the scenes. Not-so-fun fact: He was working at a company that suffered the first anthrax attack in the United States back in 2001.

TIMESTAMPS – Secret Identity/Origin Story (2:37) – Biggest Superhero (13:26) – Biggest Failure (18:59) – Awkward Testing Story (29:57) – What Do You Do at 3M? (31:44) – Design Superpower (41:22) – Design Kryptonite (44:23) – How Do You Manage Timelines? (47:17) – Design Superhero Name (53:01) – Fight For Users (55:17) – What’s a Customer Journey Map? (57:33) – Habit Of Success (60:07) – Invincible Resource (63:38) – Book Recommendation (66:43) – Best Advice (69:34) – Contact Info (70:49)

LINKS Andy’s Twitter Andy’s LinkedIn

[RESOURCE] People [BOOK] Banish Your Inner Critic

BROUGHT TO YOU BY Adobe XD Design at the speed of thought with Adobe XD, the first all-in-one UX/UI solution for designing, sharing and prototyping experiences. Try the free beta today.

RealtimeBoard Whiteboard. Finally in your browser. The simplest visual collaboration platform for agile product teams, UX/UI designers, project leaders, marketers and creatives. Try it free!

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Cultivating a Creative Culture with Justin Dauer Jun 30, 2017

Show notes

Buy the Book

Buy Justin’s great book through my Amazon affiliate link, and help User Defenders at no additional cost to you. Win/win!

Buy the Book

“We create human-centered interactions and experiences in our field. Empathetic purpose drives our every decision. Mobile First? In reality, it’s humans first. This same mentality, turned inward, forms the cornerstone of something amazing: a creative culture.

Whether in a leadership role or as a member of the team, it’s a fact: a happy and well-supported employee is a fueled, charged, inspired creator.” – Excerpt from Cultivating a Creative Culture

Justin and I dive deep into the problems with creative cultures today. He answers important questions like:

What problems are you seeing in creative workplace cultures today?
What are the best questions you’ve found to ask to get a strong feel of the culture in an interview?
What are some clear indicators that it’s time to leave?
Can a creative not in senior leadership working in an awful culture actually affect change in their workplace?
Much more…

Where we hang our hat every day is one of the most important decisions in life. Unless we’re remote, we’ll spend more time at work than at home with our loved ones. If we find ourselves in a place that doesn’t trust, or value us or our contributions, and in fact may even be abusive in dealings with us–the stress could actually eventually kill us.

I’m very proud of this episode. If it helps even one of you Defenders avoid the pain of an unhealthy culture, and pushes you to as Justin says, “never settle” in your quest to find the culture that helps you thrive as a creative person–then whatever level of discomfort it may bring listening, was all worth it.

As Justin says in his essential book, “The passion for doing your best work is too precious to be extinguished by an unhealthy culture.”

LINKS Justin’s Website Justin’s Twitter [ARTICLE] Resetting Agency Culture [ARTICLE] Don’t Be Culture-Clubbed

BROUGHT TO YOU BY Adobe XD Design at the speed of thought with Adobe XD, the first all-in-one UX/UI solution for designing, sharing and prototyping experiences. Try the free beta today.

ABOUT JUSTIN Justin Dauer is a passionate user advocate, designer, writer, and denim elitist from Chicago. Through bloodshot tunnel vision, he’s drawn from career experiences across agency side, client side, design studio, and pure tech to foster healthy, dynamic, supportive creative cultures. Crafting as the Vice President of UX & Development for bswift by day, his personal creative outlet by night (and day) is pseudoroom which also happens to be his Twitter handle. He eats a bowl of cereal every night before bed. Every. Night.

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SUPER-CRED Editing by Chris Combs

036: No Designer Left Behind with Nick Finck Jun 26, 2017

Show notes

Nick Finck teaches us the value of being a connector, and mentoring other designers. He gives us a really compelling, dare I say accurate look into the future of UX. He inspires us to make sure we unplug every once in a while. He also motivates us to find the sweet spot between users, the business, and technology.

Nick Finck at the time of this interview was the Product Design Manager at Facebook. Now, he’s a User Experience Design Immersive Instructor at General Assembly. Prior to Facebook, he was Head of User Experience at Amazon Web Services. He’s been working on the web for two decades solving complex problems for Fortune 500 companies such as Adobe, Intel, REI, Boeing, Google, and Oprah.com. He spent one of those decades also running one of our community’s leading blogs in the early days called Digital Web Magazine. He’s been an active speaker since 2001, who’s spoken at many of our esteemed conferences. He recently started a really exciting project called “UX for Change” with a two-fold goal: to bridge the experience gap many designers have after graduation, and address the mentor deficiency. He also happens to be runner up for Seattle’s Sexiest Geek thwarted by none other than “The Oatmeal’s” Matthew Inman.

Secret Identity/Origin Story (4:13)
What Inspired Your Career? (6:12)
Biggest Superhero (11:20)
Second Career Choice (14:00)
Biggest Failure (15:33)
What Do You Look For When Hiring? (20:40)
Awkward Testing Story (26:44)
Design Superpower / Superhero Name (33:23)
Design Kryptonite (36:56)
Fight For Users (41:28)
Future Of UX Design (46:58)
Rise Against The Machines? (54:28)
Habit Of Success (58:22)
UX For Change (62:13)
Book Recommendation (70:54)
Invincible Resource (73:12)
Best Advice (74:40)
Contact Info (77:35)

LINKS Nick’s Twitter Nick’s Facebook Nick’s Website UX for Change We Make Seattle [RESOURCE] People [BOOKS] Design Is a Job, A Project Guide to UX Design

BROUGHT TO YOU BY Adobe XD Design at the speed of thought with Adobe XD, the first all-in-one UX/UI solution for designing, sharing and prototyping experiences. Try the free beta today.

RealtimeBoard Whiteboard. Finally in your browser. The simplest visual collaboration platform for agile product teams, UX/UI designers, project leaders, marketers and creatives. Try it free!

SUBSCRIBE TO AUTOMATICALLY RECEIVE NEW EPISODES Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | RSS Feed

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035: Minding the Product Gap with Samuel Hulick Jun 12, 2017

Show notes

Samuel Hulick shows us how to build bridges for our users. He motivates us to make sure that the effort put into building the software is not wasted in the onboarding experience. He also inspires us to stay curious, and always be learning.

Samuel Hulick is the man behind UserOnboard.com where he creates popular teardowns of onboarding user flows on some of the most popular digital products around. He’s also an author of a book he’s definitely the authority on called “The Elements of User Onboarding”. He’s a consultant, UX designer and front-end developer based out of beautiful Portland, Oregon. He’s also a prolific writer publishing some pretty viral posts on Medium these days. You might be surprised to learn that Samuel is a high-school drop out.

Secret Identity/Origin Story (5:04)
Onboarding Defined (9:30)
Biggest Superhero (16:08)
Biggest Failure (17:00)
Weirdest Teardown (32:00)
Design Superpower (39:20)
Design Kryptonite (41:24)
Design Superhero Name (42:40)
Habit Of Success (48:30)
Invincible Resource (50:23)
How Much Is Too Much (52:00)
Best Advice (64:20)

LINKS Samuel’s Personal Twitter Samuel’s Professional Twitter Samuel’s Website Product People, Mind the Gap! [ARTICLE] Never Mix Up Features with Benefits Ever Again [ARTICLE] The Art of Building (or Burning) Product Bridges [ARTICLE] Kathy Sierra (Business of Software 2009) [VIDEO] Extra Credits (YouTube) [VIDEO]

BROUGHT TO YOU BY Adobe XD Design at the speed of thought with Adobe XD, the first all-in-one UX/UI solution for designing, sharing and prototyping experiences. Try the free beta today.

RealtimeBoard Whiteboard. Finally in your browser. The simplest visual collaboration platform for agile product teams, UX/UI designers, project leaders, marketers and creatives. Try it free!

SUBSCRIBE TO AUTOMATICALLY RECEIVE NEW EPISODES Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Music | RSS Feed

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New Season Teaser Reel Jun 05, 2017

Show notes

New Season Starts 6/12

If you’re seeing this on your podcast player, you can also watch the video here.

Greetings User Defenders!

The new season is starting June 12th and I could not be more excited to share it with you. So much so that I put together a teaser reel. Oh, and I put myself in front of a camera for the first time. Hope this is the start of a new trend for me.

Be sure to subscribe to the feed so you don’t miss these great episodes coming your way very soon!

I hope you enjoy this, and again thank you for being a faithful User Defender!

Until June 12th…fight on my friends!

Jason

034: Great Products Start with Empathy with Jonathan Pimento Mar 20, 2017

Show notes

Jonathan teaches us how product managers are the glue between design and engineering. He reminds us that the most important role we can play in the success of a product is being a voice for the customer. He encourages us to never give up on our personal projects. He also motivates us as designers to always stay inspired.

Jonathan Pimento is a Product Manager for Adobe XD. He has a deep passion for design, technology and their intersection. In 2009, he had to pick one of his passions to pursue academically so he chose computer engineering at the University Of Mumbai. He’s been a freelancer, worked with a few startups and has taken many small steps up the big ladder. Solving problems and connecting with the end user is what drives this passion. His interests span across design to writing code, and balancing both with research & data. He also enjoys running and swimming on the weekends.

This episode is brought to you by Adobe, makers of XD

Try XD for Free

LINKS Jonathan’s Twitter Jonathan’s Website Signal Noise (Portfolio of James White) [RESOURCES] Dribbble [READING] UserTesting.com, Twitter, Medium, Airbnb Lottie

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Demystifying Public Speaking with Lara Hogan Mar 06, 2017

Show notes

“I saw a study that said speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number one fear of the average person. I found that amazing. Number two, was death. Death is number two? This means, to the average person, if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.” – Jerry Seinfeld

If you’re a “normal” human being and not a sociopath like Dexter, even the mere thought of public speaking makes you want to crawl under a desk with your favorite blankie and hide. But yet still, the you can’t escape the thought. It nags at you. It beckons you to share what you know. Because you know something in a way others don’t that could really help them on their journey. If that sounds familiar, and you (like me) have been feeling stirred up about public speaking and aren’t sure where to begin or how to overcome your nerves…this special episode is just for you.

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033: Design is About People with Andrea Picchi Mar 01, 2017

Show notes

Andrea Picchi reminds us that the core of design is always about people. He dives deep into the importance of design thinking. He motivates us to embrace ambiguity, and to fail as often as possible without losing the job. He also inspires us to believe in design and to always defend the user’s point of view.

Andrea Picchi has 20 years of experience in UX, UI and Product Design. He combines his skills in Cognitive Psychology and Computer Science with his passion for UX and Human-Centered Design to create integrated, multi-device experiences. He believes in design and connecting customer needs to business opportunities. He also practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kick-boxing and mixed martial arts.

Secret Identity/Origin Story (1:40)
Biggest Superhero (7:42)
Biggest Failure (12:18)
Awkward Testing Story (18:26)
Design Superpower (22:48)
Design Kryptonite (25:12)
Design Superhero Name (30:42)
Fight For Users (33:43)
Design Thinking (37:09)
Habit Of Success (47:06)
Invincible Resource (50:25)
Book Recommendation (52:08)
Best Advice (55:46)
Contact Info (60:57)

LINKS Andrea’s Website Andrea’s Twitter Andrea’s LinkedIn

[RESOURCE] Interviewing people. [BOOK] Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All

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032: There is No There with Sarah Doody Feb 06, 2017

Show notes

Sarah Doody inspires us to break out of our comfort zones early & often if we want to achieve great things. She teaches us that our drawings should serve more as a communication tool than an art project. She encourages us to tap into our superpowers of using both sides of our brain. She also motivates us to not let anything stand in the way of becoming great at our craft.

Sarah Doody is a user experience designer and product strategist based in New York City. She helps product teams create products people need and love. She does this through smart and fast research, prototyping, and experience design. She produces a highly acclaimed weekly newsletter called the UX Notebook. She created and taught General Assembly’s first 12 week User Experience program back in 2011. She was originally going to be a neuroscientist.