Design Thinking 101

Sheryl Cababa drives a human-centered design practice focusing on systems thinking and evidence-based design, working on everything from robotic surgery experience design to reimagining K-12 education through service design. In her work with consultancies such as Substantial, Frog, and Adaptive Path, she has worked with a diverse base of clients including the Gates Foundation, Microsoft, IHME, and...

Kip Lee is a designer and healthcare executive at University Hospitals Health System in Cleveland, OH. As Vice President of UH Ventures, he manages an innovation portfolio that supports University Hospitals' strategic initiatives and partnerships through product innovation and human-centered design. Outside of work, Kip serves on the editorial board of Design Issues, a design and innovation journa...

Nahal Tavangar is a self-professed generalist who has worked in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors across two continents. These roles and experiences have given her valuable insights into design thinking in various industries, work environments, business models, and workplace cultures. Today, we talk about research workshops, metaphors, and designing feedback. Listen to learn about: >> Des...

Nick Fink is a design and research leader with over two decades of experience in the industry. Nick currently consults and advises businesses on design and research in Seattle through his company, Craft & Rigor. Listen to learn about: >> Core disciplines of UX design >> What is interaction design? >> What does it mean to be a UX designer today? >> The challenges UX and design face in today's busin...

Alvin Schexnider is an emancipatory designer and a business operations strategist who helps institutions become more effective, just, citizen-centered, and innovative. He has 15 years of experience in leadership across design, strategy, equity, and business operations in the government, nonprofit and for-profit spaces. Currently he is a part of Capital One's Equity and Design team as a senior equi...

Allen Higgins joins me as we share host and guest roles to talk about design practice systems and creating for and with the people we serve. Alan is a research associate and lecturer in the Center for Innovation Technology and Organization in the School of Business at University College Dublin. Listen to learn about: Design and design thinking process Design thinking mindset How to introduce desig...

Mike Monteiro is a designer and the author of Ruined By Design, You're My Favorite Client, The Collected Angers, and the newly-revised Design is a Job. Listen to learn about: >> Mike's book, Design is a Job >> Ethics in design >> Designing society so that ethical behavior becomes the norm Our Guest Mike Monteiro is the co-founder and design director of Mule Design. He mostly writes these days. His...

Hazel White is a designer and a visualizer. She creates simple visuals to help communicate complex ideas. We talk about how design and visualization combine to facilitate thinking, fuel solving, and create transformative change. Listen to learn about: >> How visualizations can help us communicate ideas >> Examples of what you can use visualizations for >> Hazel's visualization projects and their i...

David Dylan Thomas is the author of Design for Cognitive Bias and the creator and host of the Cognitive Bias podcast. Dave has consulted with major clients in entertainment, healthcare, publishing, finance, and retail. As the founder and CEO of David Dylan Thomas, LLC, he offers workshops and presentations on inclusive design and the role of bias in making decisions. We talk about cognitive bias,...

This episode of the Design Thinking 101 podcast is 5.5 Things Every Designer Should Know About: Appreciative Inquiry. Joan McArthur-Blair and Jeanie Cockell are co-presidents of Cockell McArthur-Blair Consulting.  Listen to learn about: >> Appreciative inquiry's ability to generate hope and help people be creative >> Using generative questions to unlock people's imaginations and focus on the posit...

This episode of the Design Thinking 101 podcast is 5.5 Things Every Designer Should Know About: Positive Childhood Experiences. Dr. Robert Sege, MD PhD is a pediatrician at the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center, and a professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, where he directs the Center for Community Engaged Medicine. Dr. Sege is nationally known for his re...

Michael Ackerman is currently the director of the Master in Healthcare Innovation Program and Professor of Clinical Nursing and the director of the Center for Healthcare Innovation and Leadership at the Ohio State University College of Nursing. He also maintains a clinical practice as an acute care nurse practitioner at St. Joseph's Neighborhood Hospital in Rochester, New York. Today, we talk abou...

This is a Design Thinking 101 episode in the Ask Like a Designer series. Ask Like a Designer helps people explore thinking and solving like a designer. You'll learn about design thinking, service design, learning design, leading and building high-performing teams, and ways to achieve better outcomes. This episode is based on this article: ALD013 // Designing a Learning System for the Good Life . R...

Ruth Kikin-Gil is a design strategist, a digital product designer, and a practical dreamer who focuses on product innovation across devices, input methods, and platforms. At Microsoft, she leads the Responsible AI Practices for Microsoft's security organization. She helps drive responsible AI and Microsoft through serving on multiple AI and ethics in engineering and research workgroups. Ruth is a...

Marina Nitze is co-author of the book Hack Your Bureaucracy and works at Layer Aleph, a crisis response firm that specializes in restoring complex software systems to service. Marina was the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs under President Obama after serving as a Senior Advisor on technology in the Obama White House and as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence at...

Lisa Elzey Mercer is a designer, educator, and researcher. Her interests are in developing and executing design interventions focused on the topics of human trafficking, incarceration, race, and racism. She's an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design and Design for Responsible Innovation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. We talk about learning to see, and responding to, racialized des...

Rich Wiener is an educator and consultant who works to engage K-12 learners at a high level, and has zeroed in on design thinking as a key component. Rich's career has included being a school principal, Director of Curriculum for Ramsey Public School District in New Jersey, and an adjunct professor of education at Columbia University. We talk about the impact of design thinking in K-12 education....

Kara DeFrias is the current Chief of Staff for the Intuit QuickBooks Platform, with a background rich in both private and public sector experience. Previous work includes serving as senior advisor to the leadership team of the technology and design consultancy 18F in the Obama Administration, founding TEDxIntuit, and being part of the Emmy Award-winning production staff on the Oscars. A do-gooder...

This episode of the Design Thinking 101 podcast is 5.5 Things Every Designer Should Know About: the Opioid Overdose Epidemic. Our guest today is Stacy Stanford, the Senior Director of Overdose Injury and Violence Prevention at the National Association of County and City Health Officials in Washington DC (NACCHO). At NACCHO, she leads the overdose injury and violence prevention team to deliver fund...

Diana Sonis is a passionate believer in holistic 360 strategy and design, with extensive expertise in UX and CX design, service design, and design thinking. Lis Hubert is an acclaimed design and strategy thought leader, writer, and speaker with extensive experience in digital strategy, customer experience, information architecture, and design. Together, they founded CX by Design, a human-centered...

Sara Cantor is a co-founder and the executive director of Greater Good Studio, where she and her team think of themselves as pissed-off optimists. We talk about design for good, ethics in design practice, and creating social impact. Listen to learn about: >> Human-centered design >> Greater Good Studio's project "gut check" >> The power designers wield >> Better ways of co-designing with clients >...

This is a Design Thinking 101 episode in the Ask Like a Designer series. Ask Like a Designer helps people explore thinking and solving like a designer. You'll learn about design thinking, service design, learning design, leading and building high-performing teams, and ways to achieve better outcomes. This episode is based on this article: ALD012 // Want Better Outcomes? Find Better Problems . Read...

Chelsea Mauldin is the Executive Director of the Public Policy Lab and an adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.  Listen to learn about: >> The work of the Public Policy Lab >> How design and design thinking can help governments make better public policy >> Human-centered design in public policy >> The preparatory work that often goes underrecognized...

This episode of the Design Thinking 101 podcast is 5.5 Things Every Designer Should Know About: the Future of Higher Education. Our guest today is Bryan Alexander. Bryan is a senior scholar at Georgetown University and runs a consultancy focused on the future of higher education.   Listen to learn about: >> The current state of higher education >> Student loan debt and the financial structure of u...

Dr. Abby Bajuniemi holds a PhD in applied linguistics from the University of Minnesota and is currently a user researcher in industry. We talk about language, design research and researcher self-care. Listen to learn about: >> How language and linguistics affect design >> The interaction of society and language >> Trauma-informed user research >> Researcher self-care >> The importance of asking fo...