The World of UX with Dr Darren Hood

This week, Darren concludes his review of dark patterns, sharing some examples, and talking about the responsibilities of user experience professionals regarding this challenging and popular business strategy. #ux#darkpatterns#darrenhood#userexperience Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Have you ever visited a website to subscribe to a newsletter, purchase a product, or attempted to view some content, only to have your experience go completely awry? Maybe you signed up for something other than a mailing list. Maybe you purchased a product you didn't know was in your shopping cart. Or maybe the content you tried to view was constantly blocked by cross-selling, promotional mate...

This week, Darren concludes the current topic by paralleling personal UX maturity with certain segments of Nielsen's famous, classic organizational UX maturity model and stressing much needed character traits needed to proceed properly. Do you know where you stand today? Are you trying to move too fast? Are you up for the challenge? Tune in for details on ways to evaluate your own development,...

There isn’t a scientific discipline in the world that doesn’t require time and an investment in sweat equity to achieve any level of mastery. UX, being a science essentially, is no different. In Part 2 of "The Mirage of Personal UX Maturity," in addition to sharing some insights about the meaning of Personal UX Maturity, Darren provides some insights about the path to progress, as well as...

Many of us know about corporate UX maturity, but what about personal UX maturity. Where do we stand when it comes to our personal understanding of the discipline and where is our current level of operation? Darren begins another series focusing on mirages associated with how long it truly takes to develop UX skill and knowledge, focusing on three questions:  1) Can you really take a course to lear...

A mirage is the by-product of two things: a deficiency and a desire to alleviate said deficiency. This results in experiencing something outside the bounds of reality. In the conclusion of the series about "Overcoming the Mirage of UX Ambiguity," Darren takes time to provide his recommendation on how to overcome this problem — by embracing what he calls the "UX Cycle of Excellence.&#34...

In this episode, following a brief recap, Darren continues his discussion on what he considers to be the biggest contributor to the perception of ambiguity in UX — willful misrepresentation of the discipline. Picking up where he left off last week, Darren speaks about three more examples of willful misrepresentation: portfolios, misdirected equality, and gaslighting people about experts and what e...

This week, Darren addresses what he considers to be of the biggest contributors to confusion in the world of UX — willful misrepresentation. Today, we face large volumes of people claiming to be what they are not and framing UX in misguided ways, all for the purpose of getting ahead at the expense of the discipline AND its occupants. Listen to this episode to hear examples and strategies we need t...

Do you remember how you chose to eat when you were younger? Do you remember the days of ramen noodles and just-add-water pancakes? We chose what we ate due to budgetary constraints. Today, due to a perceived lack of ability to evaluate combined with heightened zeal, people do the same when choosing learning resources, opting for whatever they come into contact with without evaluating and validatin...

Darren delves further into factors contributing to the cloud that surrounds UX today, focusing on two elements: 1) Expectations of and misperceptions associated with UX professionals' functionality in the workplace and 2) The fallacy of UX/UI (or UI/UX) and how it has contributed to steering people away from an accurate understanding of the discipline. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle....

This week, Darren examines another source of UX ambiguity — job titles — specifically taking a look at the rise of the product designer. We'll take a look at job duties and qualifications within job postings from three prominent companies to help illustrate why people are confused and the issues this is causing for the UX world.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Op...

This week, Darren delves deeper into the mirage of ambiguity surrounding UX, focusing on contributing factors, some real world examples, and the problems resulting from this lack of understanding. He also covers an unsuspecting element contributing to the so-called ambiguity. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

UX has been in the mainstream for 20+ years. One would think its understanding would be more widespread, but several factors have limited mass UX maturity. To complicate matters more, many people feel UX is a void of standards and unity among top-level practitioners. Is UX undefined? Is UX an enigma? Is the discipline in a tailspin? In this episode, Darren will lay a foundation for this 3-part ser...

This week, Darren takes time to present a virtual fireside chat as he tells the story of his career journey in UX. In this segment, he talks about how he made the transition into the field, highlights a few milestones, and provides some encouragement for up and coming UXers to stay the course to overcome the obstacles and challenges we face today. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brand...

This week, Darren builds on the UX maturity level segments by describing and analyzing how other maturity models are structured and concluding by sharing his own supplementary UX maturity model — the UX Uncensored UX Maturity Model — stressing the need for practicality and self-awareness in order to drive successful UX operation within one's organization. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcirc...

This week, Darren concludes his coverage of the topic "The Quest for UX Maturity," with a quick recap of the segments covered previously and some key points about the final three levels of Jakob Nielsen's UX Maturity Model. Time is also spent reiterating why knowledge and pursuit of viable UX maturity levels are important to an organization. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com...

The presentation on UX maturity continues, focusing on the 4th and 5th portion of Jakob Nielsen's model, as well as discussing the general importance of embracing and having a strategy for managing the process in one's organization and what is needed to advance beyond the Skunkworks level. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Discussing modern UX historical milestones begs the question.... Where do we go from here? On this episode, Darren begins a presentation on UX maturity levels, including what they are, why they are important, and shares some UX maturity level examples for everyone to review. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We conclude our look at Modern UX Historical Milestones by looking at years 2012 to the present, most notably sharing information about the rise of UX education, hiring trends and progression varous types of workplaces, and history's repeating itself between the dot-com bust and recent corporate engagement in and with UX. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: h...

This week, we'll continue looking at UX from a foundational perspective, building upon foundational aspects of the discipline and covering the recent history of UX — from Don Norman's time at Apple in 1995 through various milestones in a modern timeline. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode of The World of UX, we recap key points from last week's topic, building upon that information by taking a quick historical look at the discipline of UX through the works of Fredrick Winslow Taylor, Toyota, Henry Dreyfuss, and Don Norman and examining how those works impact us today. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/pr...

If you ask people what UX is, you will get a host of answers and likely end up more confused than when you inquired. In this inaugural episode of "The World of UX," the podcast's host, Darren Hood, will address what UX is not and provide clear cut definitions about the definition of UX and the importance of having a sound perspective on the discipline. Advertising Inquiries: https://re...