Jeffrey Zeldman answers the provocative question, “Is Web Design Dead?”. He enlightens us to what the Web was, where it’s at now, and where it could go in the future. He touches on the many short-sighted predictions that tend to prod our delicate psyches such as automation and new technologies poised to replace Web Designers. He encourages us to ignore the rhetoric and continue to learn as tools change how Web Design is done. He also emphasizes that the Web was built on sharing, and that we must continue to share if we want to not only protect its spirit, but keep it alive and thriving.
Jeffrey Zeldman is the Godfather of Web Design, and unquestionably the greatest friend of the Web. He’s a guy behind highly esteemed Web Design content initiatives such as A List Apart, An Event Apart and A Book Apart. He’s a prolific speaker and heavily influential blogger. He’s the Author of the our industry’s staple: Designing with Web Standards. He’s the host of The Big Web Show. He’s also the founder of renown Web Design studio Happy Cog. Back in the day, he played synth and Casiotone with The Insect Surfers, a DC post-punk techno-surf band.
Jasmine Oh informs us that AI will one day replace our current jobs as designers. She challenges us to adapt to AI since no career field is exempt from its influences. She also reminds us not to fear AI but to harness it to our advantage instead. She reveals that AI shouldn’t be judged as a gloomy UX future but as a medium that supports our most meaningful work in new roles. She also encourages us to challenge stakeholders when shallow data is used to feed requirements into a product.
Jasmine Oh is a UX Designer in the Windows Product Direction team at Microsoft which is an incubation team helping define future vision of computing. She named herself after Jasmine the Princess from Aladdin. (Woo Jung is her official name, which means “friendship” in Korean.)
Nir Eyal teaches us how to harness the skill of the century… becoming Indistractable. He reminds us that distraction is an action that starts from within. He motivates us to take command of our personal development in a world that is frequently competing for our attention. He encourages us to recognize the external triggers that don’t serve us and how to be more mindful of those that do. He also shares what it takes to be competitive in an increasingly automated job market.
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Nir Eyal is the author of Hooked: How to build habit-forming products. His latest book, Indistractable shows us how to overcome distraction, and gain one of the most important skills of the 21st century. He runs a popular blog about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. His primary focus is on what he calls “behavioral design” which encompasses user experience, behavioral economics, and a dash of neuroscience. He’s taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Design. He has sold two technology companies and now help teams design more engaging products. For most of his career he’s worked in the video gaming and advertising industries where he learned, applied (and at times rejected) the techniques used to motivate and manipulate users. He writes to help companies create behaviors that benefit their users, while educating people on how to build healthful habits in their own lives. He received most of his education earning an advanced degree from the The School of Hard Knocks as well as an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also wrestled for 4 years in high school and never won a match.
Jessica Ivins schools us on the critical value of a growth mindset in UX Design. She teaches us how to learn how to learn. She enlightens us as to why it’s always better to generalize before specializing. She reminds us introverts that we can only truly succeed by extroverting. She also reveals how the best tool recommendations can only come when it’s clear what one is trying to learn.
Jessica Ivins is a user experience (UX) designer and faculty member at Center Centre, the UX design school in Chattanooga, TN, where she prepares students to be industry-ready UX designers.
Jessica dedicates much of her time to the UX community. She founded the Chattanooga UX Design Meetup, the first community organization for UX design in Chattanooga. She speaks internationally at conferences such as SXSW, Midwest UX, IA Summit, and UX Cambridge (UK). She publishes UX articles on her blog and on Medium. She’s also a voracious reader of design books, business books, and novels.
Before joining Center Centre, Jessica worked in the Philadelphia area as a senior experience designer at Happy Cog and the lead UX designer at AWeber. While in Philadelphia, she spoke at dozens of meetups and local events. She taught classes for Girl Develop It, led UX Book Club, and served on the board of Philadelphia’s UX community, PhillyCHI.
Fun fact: She’s loved unicorns since she was a small child, long before they were hipster cool. 🙂
Welcome to Joe Natoli’s UX School of No B.S. Class is now in session. Joe reveals that there’s no limit to how far any UX’er with a healthy dose of grit and resilience can go. He puts jargon in a choke-hold, then proceeds to drop-kick it in the privates! He inspires us to be like Tom Hanks in “Big”…never afraid to ask questions for the betterment of the people and project. He motivates us to apply for any job we truly want, especially when we feel unqualified for it. He also teaches us how leaving a legacy should never start with one foot in the grave, it starts right here…right now!
Joe Natoli is a UX consultant, author and speaker. Everything he does is born from nearly three decades of consulting with and training the UX, design and product development teams of some of the world’s largest organizations. Every aspect of his training and consulting approach revolves around one single, critical idea: Great UX isn’t the result of what you do with your hands — it’s the result of how you use what’s between your ears. Change the way you THINK about the design and development decisions you make and you take the first step to infusing great UX into everything you do. Joe delivers practical advice delivered in clear, jargon-free language. Methods and advice that work in the messy reality of the real world, where we don’t always have the time, budget or approval we’d like. Fun-fact about Joe: He has nearly 2,000 hours of unreleased instrumental compositions, including classical music,that he still hasn’t worked up the courage to release into the world.
What Do You Like to Do When You’re Not Working? (7:42)
What Inspired You to Pursue a Career in This Field? (10:34)
How Do You Get an Entry Level Job That Requires 3-5 Years of Experience? (34:28)
What Is It About Jargon That Drives You Nuts? (47:31)
One Definition of What UX Is (1:01:15)
What Value Do Older UXers Bring to the Table? (1:08:16)
UX Advice for Juniors in the Field (1:13:15)
The One Thing You Wish You Knew When You Started (1:17:32)
If You Had One Word for Folks Trying to Get into UX, What Would That Be? (1:20:16)
