Understanding Users: The UX Podcast

This is the third in a series of bite-sized conversations with UX design and research leaders discussing a range of topics, recorded live at the UXDX conference in New York in May 2023. In this episode Prayag Narula of Marvin shares his views on how a new generation of AI-based tooling can help us powerfully rethink, democratise and unlock the way product teams plan and conduct research with their...

Ian Pocock is MD of Research & Service Design at Transform. In this wide-ranging discussion, Ian shares his views on how product teams should always maintain a diverse outlook to avoid falling into the trap of (re)creating homogenous products; we chat about the importance of maintaining an endlessly user-centred mindset; and he shares his experiences of using Lego within workshops as a way to powe...

This is the second in a series of bite-sized conversations with UX design and research leaders discussing a range of topics, recorded live at the UXDX conference in New York in May 2023. In this episode Moshe Mikanovsky of Bain Public shares his thoughts on the importance of the right product management culture, and how product managers should go about choosing the tooling they use with their prod...

This is the first in a series of bite-sized conversations with UX design and research leaders discussing a range of topics, recorded live at the UXDX conference in New York in May 2023. In this episode Alex Wilson of T Rowe Price shares his experiences of working with a team to create an in-house design system, and the lessons they learned along the way.  He also reflects on the role of AI in the...

What is generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)? What aspects of generative AI are academics conducting cutting edge research currently investigating? How can UX researchers and designers apply lessons from this research in their own work? And should we learn to love or fear AI?   In the second episode from the CHI2023 Human Computer Interaction conference in Hamburg, I chat in-person with five at...

What is generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)? What aspects of generative AI are academics conducting cutting edge research currently investigating? How can UX researchers and designers apply lessons from this research in their own work? And should we learn to love or fear AI?   In the first of two episodes from the CHI2023 Human Computer Interaction conference in Hamburg, I chat in-person with...

Tina Ličková is a senior user researcher and strategist, and host of the UX Research Geeks podcast, where this conversation is also published.  She originally began her career in marketing and later found her calling in User Experience. She co-founded and managed a service design studio that helped corporations as well as startups, and she has also led multidisciplinary teams, enabling them to bui...

Peter Kariuki is a software engineer and entrepreneur, and the co-founder of the start-up SafeMotos , a motorcycle ride-sharing solution in Rwanda. He believes that technology can transform people’s lives and help solve Africa’s most pressing problems.  In this episode, Peter and I talk about the context of digital design in Africa, how mobile phone coverage in Rwanda affected early design decisio...

Is there a way to enable a digital avatar to ask a user research questions in an exploratory or qualitative manner? One that elicits useful research insight that can be transcribed and analyzed in real time? If users are wary of the 'uncanny valley' of interacting with an avatar will they engage with it? And how smart can these things ultimately get? Rob Symes is CEO at Fortell.ai . In this episod...

Axel Thomson is the CEO and Founder of Ribbon , a platform for rapid, continuous UX research that lets organisations do user interviews and in-product surveys in real time with customers, as they are actually using that organisation's website or apps. In this episode, Axel and I chat about his career pivot from product manager to digital start-up founder, and how the challenges he faced as a produ...

What's the best way to run an A/B test? How can you increase your customer conversion rate through UX research? What is funnel performance analysis?  "If you listen to your users they will tell you what they want and then you have to be creative in.....the experience that generates value for them. This is what customer centricity is in my view - generating value so that users are willing to contin...

Alex Race is Head of Digital Customer Platforms at APM Terminals, part of Maersk group.  Imagine that 3 months into a new role as Head of UX and Design within one of the world’s largest transportation and logistics companies your organisation gets attacked by international cyberterrorism. At a stroke, this takes out most of the company's IT infrastructure. The responsibility of rebuilding your dig...

In the second episode recorded in-person at UXDX 2022 in Dublin, I chat in depth with six conference attendees from a broad spectrum of organisations to get them to reflect on the event, and hear more about why they came and what they will take away from it. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities they face in their own companies, and consider what in their view the future holds for User...

Mihaela Dragici is Associate Director at Volkswagen Digital Solutions .  In this episode of Understanding Users, recorded in person at UXDX 2022 in Dublin, Mihaela and I discuss her work in an industry having to rapidly adapt to new challenges, and attempting to do that in an agile and digitally product-centric way.   She reflects on why conferences like UXDX provide such a great opportunity to he...

"I always say [to my clients] let's research together. I've never seen impactful research done in a silo or in a vacuum...So I say let's face it together. I have multiple strategies to get stakeholders involved. The closer they get to that direct research process I have found, the more value everyone gets and the minute you get them into the process and that lightbulb goes off: 'Okay, why in the h...

"The biggest [takeaway from the event for me] without question is around accessibility....Obviously we're used to the term 'accessibility'...in terms of...the technical standards..., things like screen readers [they] might need to use. But actually, it can be all kinds of things. It can be an empathy for someone's mental health. It could be someone with RSI, and actually starting to understand wha...

"I love the fact that it's very much a peer-to-peer conference, that people are really transparent about sharing their learnings, their thoughts, and their experiences.... Everyone's incredibly friendly and open and really willing to engage and talk. It's a really nice place to 'temperature-check' what's going on [amongst] people who are delivering public sector services: what's on their mind, wha...

"There's so much hard work we need to do just to keep on ploughing through the To-Do list of digital, like making more [public] services that work in better ways [and] fixing the data that sits underneath - we sometimes talk about 'fixing the plumbing' ....And that's essentially the plan for government for the next few years...But what I wanted to do is look further ahead, because I think... there...

"My takeout from today is that you really need to listen to your users and do your research, and do regular research and get testing.... Because it's been quite obvious and apparent to me today that if that doesn't happen and you *think* you know your audience and you *think* you know the product that your users need, big mistakes can happen...": A comment from one event attendee. This is the seco...

Understanding Users is at the Leeds Digital Festival 2022! Returning for its 7th year, the festival is an open, collaborative celebration of digital culture in all its forms and hosts a two-week line-up of world class tech content in September to showcase the city’s dynamic and growing digital sector. In this short episode I'm talking to the speakers at an event entitled: ' How User Experience Des...

Sophie Dennis is the conference programme chair of the SD in Gov (Service Design in Government) conference, held in Edinburgh, Scotland in September 2022.  The conference is aimed at participants who manage, design or develop central and local government services, health and education services, emergency sector services, civic technologies and others including Government employees, consultants and...

I'm really excited to share this - it's something I've been wanting to do for ages! In this episode of Understanding Users, I speak with four friends and fellow freelance digital folks, and who I've had the great privilege of working with.  We reflect as a group on an (unnamed) large-scale UK government digital transformation project that we all worked on: what we did, how (and why) we did it, the...

Steve Bromley is a games user researcher.  In this episode of Understanding Users, Steve talks of the fascinating and ‘unique production environment’’ of video games, along with varying UX maturity levels within the games industry, and the implications both of these have on how games user research is planned and carried out. He discusses the importance of being able to conduct both generative and...

In this episode of Understanding Users, I have the pleasure of chatting to another international guest, this time based in Sydney, Australia. Tim tells me about his career journey into UX from academia via experimental psychology and social and economic research, and he shares his views on the differences between strategic and tactical research approaches. He also discusses an unexpected - but ben...

Thanks for listening to this podcast.  This time, I'd like to do something a little different - and reach out to you the listeners for your thoughts and feedback! The show has been running since October 2021 and, in the spirit of practising what I preach as a User Researcher, I'd love to get your opinions and feedback on what you like, and don't like, about it - and how I can improve it :)  If you...