Episode Archive - Page 5 of 22 - User Defenders®

061: Empathy as a Design Superpower with Jason Ogle

Empathy

061: Empathy as a Design Superpower with Jason Ogle

00:00 / 49:19

Jason Ogle proves that empathic design is not only possible, but essential in creating life-changing products and services. He enlightens us to our seldom talked about mirror neurons and the critical role they play in user testing. He shines a spotlight on incredibly powerful and moving examples of empathy in design. He also teaches us how empathy can not only be taught and learned, but practiced, because being great designer begins and ends with being a great human.

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.

Intro Story (00:24)
What is Empathy? (5:04)
Mirror Neurons (9:14)
Still Face Experiment (11:17)
Mirror Neurons and Movies (15:59)
Inspiring Examples from IDEO (19:19)
Doug Dietz’s Empathy for Terminally Ill Children (23:35)
Margaret Hamilton’s Empathy for Apollo 11 (29:44)
Can We Grow in Empathy? (34:07)
Seth Godin Explaining Empathy (35:21)
Put Your Oxygen Mask on First (36:10)
Seth Godin on Faked Empathy (39:19)
Seth Godin on Being Indispensable in an AI World (40:57)
Empathy & Mindfulness (43:23)
Rise to the Empathy Challenge (45:55)

Continue reading 061: Empathy as a Design Superpower with Jason Ogle

060: Improv & UX?! Yes, and… with Mike Gorgone

Creativity

060: Improv & UX?! Yes, and... with Mike Gorgone

00:00 / 1:03:41

Original photo by Ged Carroll

Mike Gorgone unleashes his impromptu playbook to rescue us from our most unwelcome critic…ourselves. He teaches us how marrying the two seemingly disparate concepts of improv & UX, can help us break free from the crippling self-doubt that keeps us from our best collaborations. Yes, and he shows us how fun kills fear. He also reveals how even the “bad ideas” can lead us to great ones while building a fantastic UX punchline worthy of a standing ovation.

Mike Gorgone is someone who loves being part of a creative, supportive and collaborative design team that builds engaging experiences for digital products at a company that fosters a culture that values design thinking and makes it a priority in how the company runs and solves problems. He currently gets to do all of the above in the Experience Design (XD) Group at EY. He discovered Improv when he lived in Chicago and started taking classes at Second City and iO (formerly improvOlympic). Improv taught him how to be present and more aware of the moment as well as how to listen and absorb information instead of just listening to respond. I also learned (and frequently witnessed) that a group can create more amazing and incredible work when collaborating together in a non-judgmental and supportive manner than any of those individuals could have created working alone.

What Got You into Improv? (3:47)
What Was the Aha Moment That Inspired You to Combine Improv with UX? (7:43)
Are You Also Presenting at These Workshops? (9:44)
Are You Writing a Book on This Topic? (10:09)
Workshop Topics (11:09)
Where Does Improv Fit in the Design Process? (18:01)
How Does the Yes And Exercise Work? (20:57)
Coaching Through the Fears of Doing Improv (26:47)
Feeling Safe About Ideas in the Workplace (32:36)
What Can Help to Make You Better at Improv? (38:56)
How Can We Use This in the Field? (42:09)
Final Thoughts (51:50)

Continue reading 060: Improv & UX?! Yes, and… with Mike Gorgone

059: Writing for Designers with Scott Kubie

UX Writing

059: Writing for Designers with Scott Kubie

00:00 / 55:04

Writing for Designers with Scott Kubie on User Defenders

Scott Kubie shows us how writing is designing with words. He reminds us that someone has to be the writer, and it’s our job to know who that person is. He calls on us to take up the task of writing when nobody else can, and warns of what leaving it till the end will do. He also shares some neat tricks to spur momentum and overcome those intimidating blank pages.

Scott Kubie is the Lead Content Strategist at Brain Traffic, and the author of Writing for Designers from A Book Apart. He can be found online at kubie.co, and in person at various grungy rock clubs around the Twin Cities. Since 2010, Scott has delivered over sixty public talks and workshops on writing, content strategy, and user experience design to audiences of designers, developers, artists, makers, and more. His academic career was marked by several superlatives for “Best Hair”.

Why Do We Forget About Writing? (6:30)
What’s Wrong with Lorem Ipsum? (9:36)
Present the Problem Before the Visuals (12:57)
Are Designers Expected to Be Writers? (15:55)
The Rough-In Process (20:08)
Getting Approval Through Stakeholder Participation (24:11)
Putting It All Together (30:12)
IKEA Instructions with Words (37:43)
Edit Yourself Later (41:49)
How to Level Up (47:10)

Continue reading 059: Writing for Designers with Scott Kubie

Help me keep User Defenders: Podcast on the air…

User Defenders: Podcast – UX Design & Personal Growth

Help me keep User Defenders: Podcast on the air...

00:00 / 08:15

Help me keep User Defenders: Podcast on the air…and help yourself to some amazing, exclusive perks!

I’ll Fight for User Defenders

Creating and running a podcast like User Defenders is not only a ton of work, but also very expensive.

Each episode costs $200-300 to put into the world, not to mention the recurring monthly/annual costs for software, hosting, CDN, Web dev, and more I won’t bore you with.

Sponsors are what have made this show possible and kept the lights on since 2015, but sponsor dollars are scarce and unreliable.

I also don’t want to just keep the lights on, but continue to grow the show (what got you here, won’t get you there). I am envisioning some amazing things to continue happen and branch out from this purposeful, mission-minded entity. In addition to continuing to release the best UX podcast content in the Universe, organizing & running UD Community (and all the ongoing special training/events happening there), I’m currently trying to get a UD Mentors program off the ground, as well as even thinking about organizing a UD Conference one day.

Making these exciting things a reality, in addition to keeping the lights on on the podcast, will only be truly possible with your consistent support.

In exchange, I’ll give you some pretty marvelous/exclusive things in return such as:

A personal thank you mention from me on a future episode
Access to the exclusive patron-only feed
Early ad-free access to future podcast episodes including an exclusive RSS feed
Invite to membership at the exclusive (and thriving) UD Community
Exclusive UD logo and symbol stickers mailed to you
20% off coupon code to the store for UD merch
Monthly group live streams and/or one on one video chats with me

After you commit to a monthly pledge, consider yourself a valued member of this exclusive club! I encourage you to check out the Patreon page.

I encourage you to check out the Patreon page (https://www.userdefenders.com/support) where you can read the complete story of why I launched this support campaign, see a video from me, and learn more about the reward tiers you can receive, as you consider tangibly supporting this show for whatever amount you’re comfortably able to contribute each month.

You’re why I do this, and would like to continue to…

Fight on my friends!

Jason Ogle
Your host and friend

058: Finding the Right Cultural Fit with Justin Dauer

Land a Job in UX

058: Finding the Right Cultural Fit with Justin Dauer

00:00 / 55:34

Artwork by Eli Jorgensen

Justin Dauer implores us never settle in our important quest to find the right cultural fit. He reminds us that being human-centered doesn’t just affect our users, but especially the humans we interact with. He encourages us to think hard about where we choose to hang our hat, & understand what the ramifications of the wrong decision may be. He also reveals the maze of signals to watch out for in our search for the culture that will foster our creativity, & empower our passion to produce what could be our greatest work…yet.

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.