O'Reilly Design Podcast - O'Reilly Media Podcast

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Quickly test ideas like a design thinker. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Julie Stanford, founder and principal of user experience agency Sliced Bread Design. We talk about how to get in the rapid experimentation mindset, the design thinking process, and how to get started with rapid experimentation at your company. Hint: start small. Here are some highlights: What is rapid experimentation? Rapid experimentation is a technique for figuring...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Designing for the “six minds,” the importance of talking like a human, and the future of predictive AI. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with John Whalen, chief experience officer at 10 Pearls, a digital development company focused on mobile and web apps, enterprise solutions, cyber security, big data, IoT, and cloud and dev ops. We talk about the “six minds” that underlie each human experience, why it’s important for designers to understand brain...

The O'Reilly Design Podcast: Designing in secret, designing for voice, and why improv is an essential design skill. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Cheryl Platz, senior designer at Microsoft for the Azure Portal and Marketplaces. We talk about the challenges of working on a top-secret design project, the research behind Amazon's Echo Look, the skills you need to start designing for voice, and how studying improv can make you a better designer. Here are some...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: The sombrero-shaped designer, leading design teams, and designing for retail. This week, I sit down with Cynthia Savard Saucier, director of design at Shopify and author of Tragic Design. Saucier also is keynoting at Velocity in New York, October 1-4, 2017. We talk about moving from working in design to leading designers, the real and sometimes negative impact that design decisions can have on users, and how design is organized at Shopify. Here are some...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: What makes healthy teams healthy, being customer obsessed, and design and research at Microsoft. This week, I sit down with Travis Lowdermilk senior UX designer at Microsoft, and Jessica Rich, UX researcher at Microsoft; Lowdermilk and Rich are also co-authors of the Customer Driven Playbook. We talk about why failing fast is not always a good approach, sensemaking, and never losing track of the customer’s voice. Microsoft’s customer focus Travis: Over the...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: The connective nature of product management, “no work above, no work below,” and the importance of talking to people who aren’t your customers. This week, I sit down with Matt LeMay, product coach, consultant, and author of Product Management in Practice. We talk about the four guiding principles of product management, what he has learned about himself as a product manager, and how to conduct meaningful research. Defining product management To me, being a...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Leadership, the design of product teams, and hiring optimists. This week, I sit down with Nate Walkingshaw, chief experience officer of Pluralsite and co-author of Product Leadership. We talk about hard and soft leadership skills, building cross-disciplinary product teams, and why it’s important to use the layover test when hiring. Here are some highlights: Hard and soft skills for product leadership The two different paths are hard skills and soft skills....

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Asking the right questions, conducting research in an agile environment, and conscious confidence. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with David Farkas, associate director of user experience at EPAM and co-author of the forthcoming book UX Research. We talk about his book, why everyone should learn to conduct research, and how to open up your mind to ask the right questions. Farkas and his co-author Brad Nunnally also are teaching a series of online...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Design ethics and value systems, and what the Ford Pinto can teach us about the importance of human-centered design. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Jonathan Shariat, senior interaction designer at Intuit and co-author of the forthcoming book Tragic Design. We talk about his new book and survey some use cases that point a spotlight on the importance of ethical standards in design. Here are a few highlights from our conversation: The Ford...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: The importance of intentional thinking, user-centered data visualizations, and separating functionality from implementation. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Noah Iliinsky, senior UX architect at Amazon’s AWS group, co-author of Designing Data Visualizations, and co-editor of Beautiful Visualization. We talk about how design is organized at Amazon, 17 keys to success, and why being intentional will ensure you are working on the right...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Build measure learn, the One Metric That Matters, and balancing hubris and humility. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Ben Yoskovitz, investor, entrepreneur, and former VP of product at VarageSale and at GoInstant. We talk about using metrics in product development and why anyone building anything new needs to have both hubris and intellectual honesty. Yoskovitz is co-author of Lean Analytics, and is teaching a two-day course on product strategy...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: The guiding light of strategy, designing Allbirds, and what makes the magic of a brand identity. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Simon Endres, creative director and partner at Red Antler. We talk about working from a single idea, how Red Antler is helping transform product categories, and the importance of having a point of view. Here are some highlights from our conversation: Bringing the power of nature to the footwear industry One of the...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Building bridges across disciplines, universal vs. inclusive design, and what playground design can teach us about inclusion. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Kat Holmes, principal design director, inclusive design at Microsoft. We talk about what she looks for in designers, working on the right problems to solve, and why both inclusive and universal design are important but not the same. Here are some highlights from our conversation: Thinking...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Collaborating with engineering, hiring for humility, and the code debate. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Randy Hunt, VP of design at Etsy. We talk about the culture at Etsy, why it’s important to understand the materials you are designing with, and why humility is your most important skill. Here are some highlights from our conversation: The code debate: It’s not about the code This is a hilarious debate at this point, in my mind. ... I...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Solving problems, user-centered design, and culture at NASA. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Jay Trimble, mission operations manager, ground data system manager, and resource prospector for the Lunar Rover Mission at NASA. We talk about applying Agile, adopting design thinking and user-centered design, and what he and his team rely on to design and build software for mission control. Here are some highlights from our conversation: Agile at...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Pricing design, charting your learning path, and working with friends. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Dan Mall, founder and director of Superfriendly. We talk about what skills designers should learn, pricing your work, and why getting to know yourself is just as important to becoming a great designer as learning the craft. Here are some highlights from our conversation: Working with friends I have a fairly non-traditional company, the...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Designing for trust in finance, conversational UIs, and the value of a weekly oasis. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Steph Hay, head of content, culture, and AI design at Capital One. We talk about designing for voice interactions, connecting with remote team members, and the importance of baking humanity into AI. Here are a few highlights from our conversation: Culture at Capital One ‘Follow the fun. What is your gut telling you? What is the...

The O'Reilly Design Podcast: The VUI tools ecosystems, and voice gender and accent selections. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Cathy Pearl, director of user experience at Sensely and author of Designing Voice User Interfaces. We talk about defining conversations, the growing tools ecosystems, and how voice has lessened our screen obsession. Here are a few highlights from our conversation: What constitutes a conversation? To me, I do have a definition of ‘conversational.’...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Design education, mentoring, and what design skills matter the most. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Danielle Malik, designer, owner, and mentor at Design Equation. We talk about mentoring the next generation of designers, what she is learning from recent design grads, and the role fear can play in our work. Here are a few highlights from our conversation: Design Equation: Bridging the experience gap between design education and a job Most...

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Design investment, the importance of mindset, and creating the right environment. In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Kristin Skinner, managing director at Adaptive Path, head of design management at Capital One, and co-author of Org Design for Design Orgs. We talk about managing design teams, scaling design, and what we can learn from the Golden State Warriors. Here are a few highlights from our conversation: Helping companies realize their...