Andy Vitale teaches us all about how to interview for our next UX job like a boss. He emphasizes the importance of avoiding jargon, and at all costs the temptation to conflate confidence with arrogance. He reminds us to be prepared to get way out of our comfort zones, and even offers smart techniques on how to cope with the discomfort in those critical moments. He also points out that pay isn’t everything, and that a fantastic work culture can make all the difference.
Andy Vitale is the UX Director of Wholesale Banking at SunTrust Bank, one of the nation’s largest financial services companies, where his focus is on translating human insights into actionable experiences to improve the product and service ecosystem within the finance industry. Throughout his career, he has held multiple roles as a designer, entrepreneur, education department chair, and design leader. Aside from his primary role at SunTrust, Andy serves as Director of Design Impact for AIGA Minnesota and often speaks and writes about design. Not-so-fun fact: He was working at a company that suffered the first anthrax attack in the United States back in 2001.
Sarah Doody challenges us to think of our portfolio as one of the most important products we’ll ever create. She urges us to not only communicate our contributions, but to both show and tell the story of each project. In the end, she teaches us that using the right process is more than just about landing our next UX job–it will also make us better designers.
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.
Andy Budd reveals what the hiring minds of companies are really thinking. He answers how to navigate the recruitment process and presents an invaluable insight that shows how to subvert it altogether. He urges us to be more of who we are and to recognize that each of us has unique talents that are fit for the right organizations at the right time. He also emphasizes that it’s up to each job seeker to communicate their personal value if they want to land the job of their dreams.
Andy Budd is a user experience Designer and CEO of Clearleft. He’s a best-selling tech author, curates the dConstruct and UX London conferences and helped set-up The Brighton Digital Festival. He created Silverback, a low-cost usability testing application for the Mac, and co-founded Fontdeck, a web typography start-up. He’s a regular speaker at international conferences like SXSW, An Event Apart and The Next Web. He’s also a retired dive instructor, shark wrangler, trained cave diver, he used to juggle fire for money and did his first solo flight before he was legally allowed to drive.
Aarron Walter inspires us to always try and see the big picture. He challenges us to produce more grounded work by getting outside our bubbles, and feeling a bit more pain. He shows us how storytelling is central to the human experience and transcends our medium. He also inspires us to maintain plenty of inputs in order to craft more interesting experiences for our users.
Aarron Walter (The Falcon) is the VP of Design Education at InVision. Prior to this he founded the UX practice at MailChimp (along many other accomplishments too numerable to mention here). He’s the author of A Book Apart published Designing for Emotion. He’s a frequent speaker at conferences around the world, and his design guidance has helped the White House, the US Department of State, along with dozens of startups and venture capitalists. He’s run with the bulls in Pamplona, met 3 presidents, been blessed by the Pope, and bungee jumped off a 10 story crane. Eat your heart out most interesting man in the world.
Secret Identity (2:34)
Origin Story (4:47)
How Important Is Storytelling To Our Work? (9:49)
Has Film Influenced You As A Designer? (13:08)
Biggest Superhero (19:45)
Second Career Choice (22:37)
Biggest Failure (25:38)
Awkward Testing Story (33:44)
Design Superpower (39:29)
Design Kryptonite (40:58)
Design Superhero Name (43:50)
Fight For Users (44:28)
Future Of UX Design (46:39)
Habit Of Success (51:45)
Invincible Resource (53:02)
Book Recommendation (55:25)
Best Advice (57:35)
Most Excited About (58:16)
Contact Info (1:00:16)
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? I’d also be willing to remove my cloak of invisibility from your inbox if you’d subscribe to the Bi-Weekly Bugle for superguest announcements and my Usable Thoughts.
Nikkel Blaase reminds us that we are not our users. He encourages us to make time for deep thinking. He teaches us that without failing, there’s no learning. He guides us to not spend too much time figuring out a solution if we don’t know what the problem is. He shows us how creating value for our users creates value for our business. He also motivates us to never stop learning, practice as often as we can…and stay curious.
Nikkel Blaase (Deep Thought) is a product and interaction designer from Hamburg, Germany currently working at XING. He’s the founder of “Design Made For You” studio. He’s a fantastic writer who’s published viral articles on Medium, FastCoDesign and InVision. He’s passionate about bringing product thinking to the world of product development in order to as he says build products that people actually want. When he was a teenager, he played guitar in a punk rock band.
Secret Identity (2:55)
Origin Story (5:18)
Biggest Superhero (7:55)
What Is Product Thinking (9:26)
Second Career Choice (11:10)
Biggest Failure (12:08)
Do Designers Lack Empathy For Their Businesses? (17:32)
