057: Interviewing Like a Boss with Andy Vitale

User Defenders podcast
Land a Job in UX
057: Interviewing Like a Boss with Andy Vitale
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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.

  • The Importance of Soft Skills (4:55)
  • Calming Your Nerves (17:08)
  • The Importance of Body Language (22:18)
  • What Do You Love About Interviewing? (36:15)
  • What Do You Hate About Interviewing? (38:21)
  • How Much Should I Be Paid? (41:13)
  • Discussing Salary During an Interview (47:06)
  • Favorite Last Interview Questions (51:07)
  • Whiteboard Exercise Preparation (54:58)
  • How to Tell If a Company Understands UX (60:29)
  • Words of Encouragement (63:47)

Continue reading 057: Interviewing Like a Boss with Andy Vitale

056: Building an Effective UX Portfolio with Sarah Doody

User Defenders podcast
Land a Job in UX
056: Building an Effective UX Portfolio with Sarah Doody
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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.

  • Ideal Number of Projects (4:07)
  • Lead with the Best Project (5:40)
  • Alternate Portfolios (7:13)
  • What a Recruiter Is Looking For Most (13:03)
  • Proving Your Knowledge (15:52)
  • What Does Storytelling Mean? (23:47)
  • Edit Your Work (29:48)
  • Do You Need a Website? (39:44)
  • Build a Portfolio Quickly (49:36)
  • The UX Academy (54:09)
  • Best Advice (56:31)

Continue reading 056: Building an Effective UX Portfolio with Sarah Doody

054: UX Research on a Budget with Becca Kennedy

User Defenders podcast
Psychology
054: UX Research on a Budget with Becca Kennedy
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Becca Kennedy teaches us how to do UX research on a budget. She encourages newer designers to demonstrate their problem-solving superpowers by redesigning sub-par experiences they use regularly. She reminds us that users are human before they’re users. She also shows us how we can have anything in life we want, if we will just help others get what they want.

Becca Kennedy is a Human Factors Psychologist and a UX Researcher/Designer. After an academic career designing and evaluating healthcare training technology, she turned independent and co-founded a UX consulting company called Kennason in 2015 out of Albany, NY. Currently, Becca is the UX Designer for Agrilyst, an agriculture-tech startup based in Brooklyn. She also keeps busy with consulting projects and volunteering with organizations like AIGA Upstate New York. She was recently recognized by the Albany Business Review as a 40 Under 40 awardee. Fun Fact: She has three tattoos, and all are kind of nerdy: a symbolic nod to getting through a PhD program, a subtle Star Wars X-Wing, and a piece of the original Epcot branding in Walt Disney World.

  • Becca’s Tattoo’s Origin Story (5:31)
  • Why Psychology? (6:26)
  • What is Human Factors? (11:43)
  • How do we find research subjects? (24:06)
  • The Law of Diminishing Returns (31:16)
  • Awkward Testing Story (32:57)
  • Design Superpower (39:14)
  • Design Kryptonite (40:48)
  • Coping with Imposter Syndrome (44:49)
  • UX Superhero Name (49:10)
  • Should we Call Them Users? (53:45)
  • Fights for Users (56:33)
  • Habit of Success (59:11)
  • Invincible Resource (61:54)
  • Recommended Book (63:54)
  • Best Advice (66:09)
  • Contact Info (70:07)

Continue reading 054: UX Research on a Budget with Becca Kennedy

The State of UX in AI with Josh Clark

User Defenders podcast
AI
The State of UX in AI with Josh Clark
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The State of UX in AI with Josh "Dr. Touch" Clark on User Defenders: Podcast

Josh Clark enlightens us to everything we need to know about the current state of UX in AI. He takes us on an unsettling stroll through uncanny valley. He encourages us to let machines do what they’re really good at, and humans do what they’re really good at. He guides us into how to begin getting our hands dirty with AI/Machine-Learning. He also articulates how our software/machines are embedded with values, and inspires us (for future’s sake) to be intentional about the kinds of values we embed into them.

Josh Clark spent nearly two hours with me talking all about the state of UX in AI. He answers important questions like:

  • How will failure and presenting errors be addressed as people rely on AI more & more?
  • Is there hope for the UX of Voice UI?
  • How do algorithm’s work?
  • What part of the AI development process should UX get involved?
  • Should we be worried about our jobs?
  • Will the machines we’ve built one day eventually overtake and possibly destroy us?
  • Much, MUCH more…

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053: Be a Good Ancestor with Alan Cooper (Part II)

User Defenders podcast
Product Design
053: Be a Good Ancestor with Alan Cooper (Part II)
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Be sure to check out Part I

Alan Cooper teaches us what it means to be a good ancestor. He enlightens us to why it’s so hard to build good software. He reveals how money trumps good UX and ethics far too often. He explains why UX is not about finding the best location for a hamburger menu, but about solving the big problems that exist for the user and the business. He also inspires us to consider (and potentially redirect) the footprints we’re leaving now, for the generations to come.

Alan Cooper wants to be a good ancestor. That is why he is the co-creator of the “Ancestry Thinking Lab”. It’s an organization dedicated to finding and teaching practical methods for assuring that technology products behave in an ethical manner. This is just his latest effort in a long career as an inventor and thought leader in the world of software. In 2017, Alan and his wife, Sue, sold Cooper, the company they had founded 25 years earlier. It was the very first interaction design consulting firm.

Early on, he established the basic design methods that are used across the industry today and helped to popularize the notion that digital technology shouldn’t terrorize its human users. In particular, his invention, design personas, is almost universally used in the field. He shared his tools, knowledge, and experience in two best-selling books, still in print and widely referenced. The company’s new owners are a European design firm, Designit, owned by Wipro, a tech company based in Bangalore, India.

In 1988 Alan invented a dynamically extensible visual programming tool and sold it to Bill Gates, who released it to the world as Visual Basic, arguably the most successful programming language ever. This is how Alan earned the sobriquet, “The Father of Visual Basic.” He started his first software company in 1976 and produced what has been called “The first serious business software for microcomputers.”

In 2017, Alan was named a Fellow of the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, California. In 1998 he was named a Visionary by the Silicon Valley Forum, and in 1995 Bill Gates named him the first Windows Pioneer. In 2011, Cooper left Silicon Valley to live on a 50-acre former dairy farm in the rolling hills north of San Francisco where he continues to advocate for more humane technology.

Fun fact about Alan is he’s a former aircraft pilot, and a sheep and chicken farmer.

TIMESTAMPS

  • Should designers code? (4:40)
  • Specialization vs. generalization (7:41)
  • How do designers get business on board with building great products? (13:19)
  • How do you be a good ancestor? (25:30)
  • Ancestry Thinking (40:03)
  • What does the future of UX look like to you? (43:00)
  • What advice do you have for aspiring UX designers? (51:48)
  • What do you want your legacy to be? (56:14)

Continue reading 053: Be a Good Ancestor with Alan Cooper (Part II)