Surviving UX

Do you edit your presentation in front of your audience? Schedule meetings and then forget to attend? Jiggle your mouse while you're away? Meg and Jessamyn weigh in on more terrible work habits from UXers.

Do you watch reality TV while you work? Are you the person who pipes up right before a meeting ends? Is doing your nails at your desk a productivity hack? Meg and Jessamyn celebrate terrible work habits.

How long is too long to spend polishing a deliverable? How do you motivate special snowflakes to use a design system? Meg and Jessamyn wonder if summer is even fun anymore. Episode transcripts are now available at https://survivingux.libsyn. com/site/about . 

Are you stagnating if you don't want to be a manager? How do you work for a manger who doesn't see your strengths? Is anyone still making friends at work? Jessamyn and Meg talk to best friends and UX dream team, designer and illustrator Priya Shetye and user researcher Whitney Patel.

What's it like to ditch UX design and take on a new role at your company? How do you get it together to write a UX book? Are UX skills relevant outside of work? Meg and Jessamyn speak to Jim Kalbach, Chief Evangelist at MURAL. More on Jim Kalbach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ kalbach/ https://www.amazon.com/Jobs- Be-Done-Playbook-Organization/ dp/1933820683 https://www.jtbdtoolkit.com/

Could you run a startup with your spouse? What's the first ritual to go after you leave  the corporate world? How do you break bad news to your clients? Meg and Jessamyn speak with Jill Christ, UX research consultant. Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ jillchrist LinkedIn:  https://www. linkedin.com/in/jillchrist/ Website:  https://www. jillchrist.com/  

How much time should you give companies to interview you? How do you get away from home while working at home? In this job market, is it better to cling to your raft or jump ship? Jessamyn welcomes and bids farewell to Dvir Adler, UX designer at AWS.

Why do veterans make good UXers? How much whining can a design ops person tolerate? Why can't I be a special design snowflake? Jessamyn and Meg talk to Drew Nevins, UX program manager at AWS.

Is it even possible to be an artist and a designer? Is it better to bounce around or stay at the same company for a long time? Jessamyn and Meg welcome Brian Conery, Head of UI design at CISION. brianconery.com bricondesign.com IG: brianconerydesign IG: brianconeryart Medium articles: https://medium.com/p/e5f88b8740df https://medium.com/p/70d3e268044 https://medium.com/p/c26ec9d96ac9 https://mediu...

How can we light a fire under an unmotivated designer? Why can't our design teams be a bunch of mini-mes? What's the biggest difference between West Coast and East Coast designers? Jessamyn and Meg talk to Jessica Schafer , UX lead at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  

Do you remember your first UX conference? Has your conference proposal ever been rejected? Do I even like going to these things? Jessamyn & Meg reminisce about our favorite UX conference moments.

Does anyone want to hear about your maternity leave? How much should you share your mental health struggles at work? Should you ever do design work for friends? Jessamyn and Meg talk about the joys of returning to work after baby.

Does anyone ever complete all those onboarding tasks? Is it better to be a solo designer or one of too many cooks in the kitchen? Are users lazy? Jessamyn talks to Eunju Tae, senior UX designer at Google.

How many meetings does it take to obliterate your productivity? Does being a thought leader matter? Are you supposed to be working on your own ideas? Jessamyn and Meg interview Uday Gajendar, design manager at Aurora Solar and curator at Rosenfeld Media.

What hot UX design trends will completely pass you by this year? Would you encourage your kid to become a UX designer? How do you handle beloved coworkers quitting the team? 

Jessamyn & Meg welcome a living, breathing, male to the show, John Spann, director of Identity Platform at LogMeIn.

What do you do when your research disagrees with what your team believes? Have you ever had your user researched challenged or dismissed? How do you find new collaboration partners when your stakeholder sucks? Meg & Jessamyn talk to  Britney LeBaron , UX quantitative researcher.

How do you know when you're seeing red flags at work? What can you do to keep from feeling overwhelmed with UX requests? What should you do when a co-worker is a bit too friendly? 

What is the worst way to organize your project files? How can you embrace your UX burnout? Plus, Meg gives her hot take on "Think Again" by Adam Grant.

Is it even possible to piss off your design or research ops person? Briana Perry, lead research ops goddess at Procore, talks about her post-it obsession, how she blasted through obstacles with her legal team, and people who do research (PWDR).

Does anyone really use the design process? Are designers just a bottleneck? Is it so terrible to put lipstick on a pig? Jessamyn and Meg answer questions from designers in agony. 

How do you tell your boss you're pregnant? What if everyone on your team is single and you're expecting? Can you breastfeed on conference calls? This week Meg and Jessamyn chat with guest host, Nidhi, an anonymous UXer and mom, about pregnancy and maternity leave during your UX career.

How can you figure out what other designers are making? Is there any hope of staying ethical in your design practice? How can you make waves on your team using "soft resistance" ala Richmond Y. Wong? Jessamyn & Meg talk to Associate Professor Lynn Dombrowski from Indiana University - Purdue University in Indianapolis (IUPUI), who fell in love with design while she was learning to code. Find Lynn a...

How do you squeeze blood from a stone...or requirements from your product manager? Are hackathons ever worth the time? How do you respond when your collaboration partner is a dud?

What can airline stewardesses teach us about defending design decisions? Does anyone enjoy vision work? What happened to our happy path? Jessamyn & Meg answer questions from students getting into user experience.