Understanding Users: The UX Podcast

Vanessa Devine is a UX Designer and Project Manager at Cheeky Monkey Media in British Columbia, Canada.  In this episode of Understanding Users, my first full-length interview with an international guest, Vanessa tells me about starting her UX career during a pandemic, the thrill of watching your own projects develop and actually go live, and the power of getting clients emotionally invested in th...

In the final part of this 4 episode mini-series covering the fully-remote UCD Gathering 2022 , I chat with some of the conference attendees to hear more about why they came to the event, what they enjoyed about it and what they will take away from the busy 2 days of online sessions.  I also ask them about the role they feel that user-centred design can and should play in ensuring the maximum impac...

This is the final of a three-part episode in which I chat with the keynote speakers at the fully-remote 2022 User-Centred Design (UCD) Gathering conference .  Eriol Fox is a Human Rights Centred Designer, who is currently Senior Designer @ Simply Secure and a PhD researcher @ Newcastle University .  Eriol tells me about their career to date, the way they work, and outlines their keynote address, w...

This is the second of a three-part episode in which I chat with the keynote speakers at the fully-remote 2022 User-Centred Design (UCD) Gathering conference .  Ben Holliday is Chief Designer at TPXimpact . Daniel Tuitt is a freelance Service Design Lead.  Ben and Daniel talk to me about their careers to date, the way they work, and they both share more details of their keynote addresses. Ben's key...

Welcome to the first of this three-part episode of Understanding Users, where I'm talking to the keynote speakers at the third and fully-remote 2022 User-Centred Design (UCD) Gathering conference . I talk first with Jen Thomson , who is the Programme Committee Chair for UCD Gathering 2022.  She introduces the conference and the four inspiring keynote speakers who I'm speaking to over the next few...

Jackie Brownlee is a freelance Service Designer.  In this episode of Understanding Users, Jackie discusses the importance of documenting what you're learning in the most impactful format to make sure it's seen by everyone both in and beyond a product team, and also remembering that not every user-centred problem can be solved immediately (or indeed at all) by a design team.  She shares her thought...

Scott Byrne-Fraser is Chief Metaverse Officer and Technical Co-founder at Hundo .  In this episode of Understanding Users, Scott shares his views on how UX teams can have the most impact within their organisations by creating compelling narratives, based on solid research data, and getting them in front of the right stakeholders. He talks of the curiosity and empathy so crucial to the discipline,...

So I thought I’d do something a little different for this episode...  After 2 years of lockdowns and remote working, I actually went to a face-to-face UX event! Yes, I hopped in my car and drove down to UXCampBrighton on the south coast of the UK. It styles itself as an ‘unconference for people interested in all areas of user experience, from  interaction design to information architecture, user r...

Tim Blass is Experience Design Lead at MMT Digital .  In this episode of Understanding Users, Tim talks of the ‘aha’ moments of the experience design process and the power of continually asking ‘why?’ to ensure you get to the root cause of the problem you’re designing for. He talks of the need for designers to continually stay curious and empathetic in their work, and reflects on the surprising pr...

Ben Watson is a freelance UX designer currently working with the London Borough of Sutton . In this episode of Understanding Users, Ben shares his view of how technology should never be an end in itself, but rather a means of allowing users to achieve their desired goals. He portrays a key part of his role as being a facilitator of the flow of information between the user and the product team, and...

Frances Maxwell is a Software Engineer at Skyscanner. In this episode of Understanding Users, Frances shares her fascinating career path - including early stints at a violin dealer and even a Bollywood streaming site - and explains how and why her ‘itch to build things’ helped her make the pivot from senior UX roles into retraining as a software engineer. She talks of her love of code, the dangers...

Nick Grantham  is Associate Director at Zebra People . In this episode of Understanding Users, Nick talks about the incredible buoyancy of the current booming UX job market and the ever-growing demand for both product and service design roles. We discuss the importance of ‘going with your gut’ when job hunting, the dangers of being too purist in real-world UX projects, and we touch on some of the...

Andy Curry is UX Director at Lion+Mason . In this episode of Understanding Users, Andy reminds us of the power of storytelling as one of UX’s most underrated skills and how the basics of observing users to help inform design decisions in essence dates back thousands of years. We discuss the impact of global lockdowns on carrying out ethnographic research, and of the epiphany moments of real insigh...

Katie John is Head of User Research at Caution Your Blast .  In this episode of Understanding Users, Katie shares her strong belief in technology as a force for good, and she talks about the importance of early generative research when designing digital services.  She discusses how good user researchers should not be only fascinated by other people and their behaviour, but also self-reflective. Cr...

Gavin Adam is a Product Lead at NHS Digital .  In this episode of Understanding Users, Gav shares the collaborative techniques and product leadership experience he uses when building services for organisations like NHS Digital and HMRC to solve problems for their users.  He discusses how experiencing agile product delivery in government opened his eyes to a better way of building digital products;...

Dr. Jon Sykes is Head of Service Standards at National Highways . In this third episode of Understanding Users, Jon and I chat about his fascinating and diverse career in service design; the power of collaborative design workshops, and the real benefit that using evidence-based user insight can bring when you’re trying to win round sceptical project stakeholders.   He also plays my 3 card challeng...

Tom Devlin is Founder and Principal UX Specialist at UserLab . Tom and I talk about his career, the challenges and benefits of founding (and growing) your own UX agency, and why researchers should never be afraid of awkward silences.  He also plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favoured technique and a trend he sees in the future.  Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy t...

Robin Potter is Lead UX Designer at Waitrose . In this very first episode Robin talks to me about his varied digital career; his current design work with product teams at Waitrose; and how he ensures UX can have the most impact when building user-centred digital products and services. He also discusses the trials and tribulations of user testing and offers some tips for aspiring UX designers. Fina...

Hi, I’m Mike Green , a freelance user research lead and digital consultant based in the UK.  Welcome to Understanding Users! In this podcast series, I chat with digital experts from a variety of disciplines, including user research, UX and service design, software development and product management…. and there’s even a start-up founder or two. I talk to them about how they came to be in their curr...