UX Soup

Three out of 3 podcast hosts agree: Waiting stinks! This week Chris, Lisa, and Derek discuss the “UX of Waiting” in transportation contexts like airports, taxi queues, train stations, and worst of all traffic jams. How can designers make active or passive waiting less anxiety-inducing for travelers? And in a fun Condensed Soup segment, the gang considers what they’d do if their phone dies while wa...

Friend of the podcast Dr. Santosh Basapur returns for a third time! On this episode, Dr. Basapur shares his thoughts on AI's impact on health care service design, including possible improvements in patient care, and the new challenges AI could introduce.

As robotaxis flood public roads, many groups continue to voice safety concerns. One ongoing challenge relates to how driverless cars interact with fire engines, ambulances, and law enforcement. In this special episode, Derek and Chris put on their “researcher hats” to moderate an interview / participatory design session with Christopher Dodge (a firefighter, EMT, and former UX researcher!) on best...

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in the US more than 7000 pedestrians are killed each year and more than 71000 injured. According to the World Health Organisation, pedestrians represent over 20% of all road traffic deaths. In this episode we talk pedestrian (and cyclist) safety with Dr. Austin Angulo from the Transportation Research and Visualization Laboratory at t...

Like any UX or human factors research project, “digital transformation” (the integration/evolution of new tech to parts of a business) requires a strategic, human-centered approach. In this episode, we explore approaches for digital transformation, and the importance of change management during the process. We also discuss how the AI bubble has affected the field. In Condensed Soup, we share stori...

In this installment of our Spilt Soup series, exploring the reasons behind product and service failures, we review the spectacular faceplant of Sonos. In 2024 Sonos pushed a "courageous" (not our word) app update that broke several core features, not to mention its users' trust. We analyze how Sonos lost $600 million in market cap overnight, and what product teams can learn from this failure. In C...

Tesla recently announced its intention to sunset manufacturing of its Model S and Model X cars, in favor of... robots? On this episode Lisa, Chris, and Derek break down the "why's" behind this decision, and the effects it could have on Tesla's legacy. In our Condensed Soup segment, the team discusses what we're naming our first humanoid robot, and where we're storing them in our homes.

Bryan Reimer, Ph. D., is a Research Scientist in the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics and co-author of the book "How to Make AI Useful: Moving Beyond the Hype to Real Progress in Business, Society and Life." Bryan discusses AI's current trajectory, its impact on transportation, jobs, creativity, and other areas of life. He discusses how to harness AI as a useful tool to fully realise AI...

Every year the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas provides a glimpse into the strategies of automakers and suppliers. Derek walked the show floor to assess where the automotive world is headed. Join us as we discuss AI, new in-cabin experiences, Derek's robotaxi ride, and what was missing from this year's show. In Condensed Soup, Chris and Derek share their personal CES hacks.

Happy New Year! The stereotypical New Year's resolution is to work off all the weight gained over the holiday season, so in this first episode of 2026 it seemed appropriate to revisit the UX of fitness tech. We covered this topic back during the pandemic, so we look at how things have changed since then and where it still falls short. In Condensed Soup, we share our favourite sporting/fitness acco...

As the holidays are upon us, it seems fitting to talk about one of the popular presents young people especially will be asking for: games. Join us on the last episode for 2025 as we discuss how UX research for gaming differs from other industries, how gaming UX has changed over the years, future trends, and most importantly, what games we are all playing at the moment.

In this extended episode of UX Soup, we talk with Professor Gary Burnett from Loughborough University, who is a pioneer in the use of immersive technology, especially social virtual reality, as a means to engage and teach Higher Education students in new and meaningful ways. We talk with Gary about two recently published research articles: one on hologram teachers and the other on utilising virtua...

The first instalment of Spilt Soup, which breaks down UX reasons for spectacular product and service failures. Where better to start than Quibi? In 2020 Quibi was launched with massive financial backing as a streaming service to compete with Netflix and other video streaming platforms. But after only 8 months it was gone. We analyse what went wrong from a UX perspective and lessons that can be lea...

A recent study out of Dongchedi in China evaluated how effectively 36 cars handled 15 obstacles in both highway and urban settings. We discuss the results of the study, the strengths and weaknesses of it, and what it means for safety and human factors in the design of these systems. In Condensed Soup, we share our most proudest or most memorable research findings.

In this episode, we discuss fake people. No, not people who pretend to be somebody they're not, but true fake people and their potential use in UX research. AI-powered participants? AI researchers? There are companies creating these fake participants for usage in product and market research, and we discuss the pros and cons. Then we contemplate other use cases for fake people, and Oprah and ABBA b...

We are all aware of issues with data privacy on the internet and on your mobile devices, but how aware are you about the data being collected from your car? We discuss how this data is different from that of your other connected devices and how well automakers are protecting your data. We review a benchmarking report from Privacy4Cars which evaluates how effectively automakers honor your privacy r...

Zoe is a personalized nutrition program which uses at-home tests and blood sugar monitoring to help users understand how their body responds to food and provide personalized dietary recommendations. Chris and Derek interview Lisa about her positive and negative experiences with Zoe, and what she would change for future releases. In Condensed Soup, we discuss our favourite recent health care t...

In this episode, we discuss an opinion piece written by Nick Hodges lamenting the decline of the user interface , providing our analysis of the main points regarding where UI has gone wrong and how we can fix it. In Condensed Soup, we discuss the most misused UX research phrases.

Make sure you stay to the end of the episode for a big announcement! But before that, Derek talks with Chris and Lisa about why he is part of the Tidbyt fan club. Tidbyt is a retro-style display that has a passionate core base but likely a limited future. For UX Soup, they discuss their favourite retro video game.

For years, automotive interior design has trended toward minimalism, which combined with smartphone and other tech trends has led automakers to move an ever increasing amount of functionality to the touchscreen. However, some automakers and regulators are pushing back. Join Chris, Derek, and Lisa as they discuss touchscreen design considerations, safety issues, and give their thoughts on the futur...

Last year, Human Factors and Ergonomics professionals from Delft University of Technology published a paper arguing that their field was losing credibility and significance. Join Chris, Derek, and Lisa (our three human factors professionals) as we discuss this article and the profession as a whole. Is the paper correct? What are the dangers facing our profession? What can be done to make it more i...

Can it be? Yes! UX Soup has returned with the original gang! Join Chris, Lisa, and Derek as they return to the mic to talk about the UX of ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs). They discuss applications, its impact on UX research, and for Condensed Soup share their silliest AI experiences, with a singalong at the end.

This week, Lisa sits down with Serena Nüsing and Stéphanie Krus and their research project “Practitioner’s Stories” where they and their team volunteered their time to examine the needs of the service design community. Listen as we discuss some of their discoveries from the interviews they conducted with other professionals in the field and how the process itself impacted participants and indeed t...

Today we really go beyond the buzzwords and discuss in full the buzzword of the year: the metaverse. Chris welcomes David MacQueen from Strategy Analytics to discuss what the metaverse is, why it is, what use cases it enables, how we will interact with it, and why augmented reality is the key to future metaverse adoption. SA's Metaverse research David MacQueen on LinkedIn Send us your thoughts and...

In-air gestures have been around for several years, from the Xbox Kinect to some smartphones and automotive. Join Chris and Diana as they discuss the UX of in-air gestures -- the foundational barriers gesture recognition faces, the use cases that consumers want, and issues to consider when designing them. In Condensed Soup, they discuss their favorite experience with in-air gestures. SA Research o...