Episode Archive - Page 13 of 22 - User Defenders®

Part I: Mixed Reality & the Future of Design with Austin Knight

Special Episodes

Part I: Mixed Reality & the Future of Design with Austin Knight

00:00 / 69:30

Don’t miss Part II.

“We are now in the midst of the largest technological revolution of our lifetime. Like that of the dawn of the PC or smartphone. It’s not so much of a prediction as an observation we can make. We can see that it’s actually happening before our eyes.” – Austin Knight

This entire conversation is an exploration into what Austin believes is the biggest renaissance for design and technology since the invention of the PC.

We both bring our own unique roles to this conversation. I initially take on the role of one who’s sincerely concerned with the social/cultural implications of having a device strapped on our heads, or spectacles always drawing our attention away from the human right in front of us. However, like in any good story, you will see my character arc in this very special two-part series when we uncover the potential of just how much good these nascent technologies can do for humans.

Austin’s role in the conversation is as one I like to call a glad scientist. He’s been diving deep into VR, AR, and the new cool kid on the block…MR (Mixed Reality) for quite some time now and as you can hear in his voice and articulation of where we are now, and especially where we’re going, is super-excited about what this means for designers, problem-solving and even entirely untapped revenue streams.

Fasten your seatbelt Toto…because we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore!

LINKS
Magic Leap
HTC Vive
Microsoft Hololens
Oculus Rift
OLED Display
iPhone 8 Rumors
Haptic VR
Austin’s VR Website
Black Mirror episode – “White Christmas” [VIDEO]
Apple invest in AR
Primesense
5 Design Jobs That Won’t Exist In The Future [ARTICLE]
Subway VR [VIDEO]
What’s Wrong With Your Actual Reality? [ARTICLE]
Her movie [VIDEO]
Baby Driver [VIDEO]
AltSpaceVR
Black Mirror VR Haunted House episode “Play Test” [VIDEO]
Black Mirror soldier episode – “Men Against Fire” [VIDEO]
Minority Report mall advertising scene [VIDEO]

AUSTIN LINKS
Austin’s Twitter
Austin’s Website
UX & Growth Podcast

ABOUT AUSTIN
Austin Knight is a Senior UX Designer at Hubspot where his work impacts more than 8 million visitors per month. He’s an international speaker and author. He’s a fellow podcaster co-hosting the UX & Growth podcast. He serves as a UX and IxD mentor at Columbia University and General Assembly. He also has a popular UX Design blog and newsletter at AustinKnight.com. Fun fact about Austin: He’s terrified of flying. Even though he flew 150,000 miles last year and has willingly jumped out of three planes skydiving…he has yet to overcome that fear.

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Editing by Chris Combs

038: We Need More Crappy Work with Femke

Personal Growth

038: We Need More Crappy Work with Femke

00:00 / 1:03:52

User Defenders Femke

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

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Continue reading 038: We Need More Crappy Work with Femke

037: Design in Life or Death Situations with Andy Vitale

Empathy

037: Design in Life or Death Situations with Andy Vitale

00:00 / 1:14:36

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

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Continue reading 037: Design in Life or Death Situations with Andy Vitale

Cultivating a Creative Culture with Justin Dauer

Special Episodes

Cultivating a Creative Culture with Justin Dauer

00:00 / 54:01

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“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.

SUPER-CRED
Editing by Chris Combs

036: No Designer Left Behind with Nick Finck

Mentorship

036: No Designer Left Behind with Nick Finck

00:00 / 1:20:41

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!