Ep. 43: In the third of 3 episodes in our special mini-series called Learning UX, guest host Leo Zhang talks with Sara Hubbard and Caryn Wylie, the organizers of the meetup group Seattle Women of Design and UX, about growing your network and experience by getting involved in the UX community around you. From Leo:In our third and final Learn UX episode of the mini-series I wanted to bring on the founders of Seattle Women of Design and UX meetup (seaDUXX). Caryn Wille and Sara Hubbard are some of the most-respected advocates of women in UX in the our Seattle tech scene through their meetup, and on the show they will be talking about their experiences in founding and growing their meetup, and how it has helped them in both their personal and professional lives.Caryn Wille https://www.linkedin.com/in/carynwille/https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ux-of-you/id1476322309http://www.meetup.com/seaDUXXCaryn is currently a Senior Interaction Designer at Google. Since 2011, Caryn has been helping companies from startups to medical associations to operas to telecom providers architect and design experiences that nest into the cross section of user needs and business goals. Her diverse client work has run the gamut of responsive websites, B2C e-commerce sites, internal business applications, live ticketing sales, and content management system (CMS) implementations, but she has yet to meet a project that doesn't benefit from a keen understanding of the people the experience is being built for. With a focus on storytelling and clear communication, she helps teams hone in on designing the right thing before bringing experiences to life. Caryn believes strongly in user-centered design and creating products and experiences that make users' lives easier and delight them in the process.Sara Hubbard https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-m-hubbard/Sara is a Senior User Experience Designer at Smartsheet. Sara has over six years experience working with globally-recognized brands, taking their complex tasks and transforming them into easy-to-use experiences. She takes a human-centered design approach to my work, and ruthlessly advocates for users. She prides herself in finding ways to both delight users, work within technical limitations, while meeting business needs. Sara also finds ways to give back to the community by teaching UX courses at the School of Visual Concepts, and being a mentor to folks entering the UX industry. Outside of work she enjoys playing board games, listening to true crime podcasts, and spending time with my polydactyl cat, Maisie.Both Sara and Caryn are passionate about creating an inclusive UX community in Seattle, which they do through organizing monthly events through the meetup they founded togther: Seattle Women of Design & UX (seaDUXX).This is the last episode of the three-run mini-series. This was such an impactful and eye-opening experience for me to host these, and I am forever grateful for this opportunity. Thank you all for taking the time to listen to this collaboration between Learn UX Seattle and UX Cake!Leo Zhang, Founder of Learn UX SeattleLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leozhangLearn UX Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/LearnUX/Leo Zhang is a veteran UX Strategist and Researcher who has developed insights-based strategies for clients including Dell, USAA, Philips, Johnson Controls, Impinj, and the Federal Government. He brings a unique approach and toolkit to his work and meetup, borrowing from his past experience as a Naval Nuclear Engineer combined with a Master’s Degree in Design from Arizona State University. Outside of professional work, Leo’s passions lie within his Learn UX Seattle Meetup, which now has over 3,300 members and is one of the largest, most active UX meetups in Seattle. Leo is equally as passionate about people as he is UX, and he is proud to be a member of the Greater Seattle UX community.If you enjoy UX Cake, there are some really simple ways you can help us: share this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. Rate & review us on Apple Podcast (or iTunes)!follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentListen Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake!uxcake.co | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked In

UX Cake

Learn UX: Career Growth Through Community Involvement

Ep. 42: This week we're talking about Permission to Speak - Maybe there are times you’ve found yourself hesitating to speak up, to put your voice out there… this happens a lot, it’s not just a UX issue but is a common complaint in UX, and in tech in general. And it happens at every level, I’ve been in leadership roles for 20 years and I still experience this at times. My guest is LaDonna Willems, who is the associate editorial director at Dropbox. LaDonna is a writer, and she’s an expert on voice. So when she realized that she wasn’t always speaking up, because on some level she was waiting for permission, that was incredibly eye-opening. She went through a process that really changed her perception, and it was so transformative, she wanted to share it with others. So She created a workshop to go through the process, to help others who want to find the power in their voice and to speak it, in whatever way comes naturally to them. That may be words or art or music or action. There are many ways to speak, but it starts with finding the source of your power, and the power of your voice.LaDonna Witmer Willems @wordsbyladonnaWriter, Speaker, Associate Editorial Director at the Dropbox Brand StudioAlong her personal journey to find her own voice, LaDonna has been a newspaper journalist, advertising copywriter, copy director, and poet. She’s currently one of the editorial gurus on the Dropbox Brand Studio team in San Francisco, creating and facilitating the most powerful expressions of the Dropbox voice. In minutes between meetings and her daughter’s ballet class, she’s also writing a book.LaDonna Willemshttps://www.ladonnawillems.com/out-loudLinks from the ShowSeattle Workshop Jan 28, 2020Free tickets on EventbritePause Fest - Melbournehttps://www.pausefest.com.au/FollowDropbox.design eventsChimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Danger of a Single Storyhttps://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_storyLisa Falzon - Instagram https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/lisafalzon/Bringmemybattleaxe https://www.instagram.com/bringmemybattleaxe/Chanel Miller“Know My Name”********If you enjoy this podcast, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. rate & review us on Apple Podcast or iTunes on desktop!Listen Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake!uxcake.co | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked In

Permission to Speak

Ep. 41: This episode is the second in our special mini-series called Learning UX, hosted by Leo Zhang. In this mini-series, Leo talks in-person with local UX leaders about their careers and topics they’re passionate about. This episode Leo is talking with Kimberly Wiessner, about her career spanning design, creative direction and product strategy, and about bringing teams together to align on UX value.From Leo Zhang: In our second Learn UX episode of the mini-series I wanted to bring on a friend with a knack for aligning, teaching, and driving UX work across different teams. Kimberly Wiessner is a Principal Product Strategist at REI and is going to be talking about a topic she is very passionate about: the relationship between UX and other teams in an organization.Kimberly Wiessner, currently in a Leadership role within the Digital Product Strategy team at REI, has done everything from founding her own agency, being a Global Creative Director for HSBC, guiding design direction as Director of Innovation at USAA, to now working as a Principal at REI. Throughout her career, Kim has been passionate about bringing teams together in creative ways. In this episode we tap into her knowledge bringing teams together in various UX settings and take lessons away on how you do this at your workplace.Kim Wiessner is a high-performing leader with a passion for orchestrating customer experiences. A natural ability to see the big picture, absorb strategy, and provide clear direction toward action. A passion for influencing organizational change and aligning cross-functional teams. Positive energy that inspires others to work through ambiguous problem spaces. A customer-centered mindset and approach to design thinking and product discovery. Delivery-oriented team leader and ego-less task smasher.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlywiessner/********If you enjoy this podcast, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. rate & review us on Apple Podcast or iTunes on desktop!Listen Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake!uxcake.co | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked In

Learn UX: Aligning UX Value

Ep 40: Since I started asking users questions as part of my design process over 20 years ago, I’ve often asked myself, how could I ask better questions. Am I asking the right questions? What bias am I bringing into the interaction? As we progress in our research practice and go beyond the 101 lessons like avoiding leading questions, asking questions that are open-ended, leaving silence in the spaces to allow participants to talk more, learning to interpret actions and expressions not just words… those are all important, that’s where we start, but how can we go beyond that. at some point we might begin to look inward as researchers, and the part we as individuals are playing in the outcome, our biases, assumptions, our own values and life experiences.Who better to have this conversation with, I asked myself, than Steve Portigal, an author and expert on the subject of asking questions. Steve wrote the book Interviewing Users which is a great place to start for those who are newer to asking users questions, and he also wrote Doorbells, danger and dead batteries, with stories from practiced user researchers that deals with some of these questions of bias. We had a great conversation with lots of great advice for researchers at any level.Linked in https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveportigal/Medium https://medium.com/@steveportigalSteve’s Dollars to Donuts podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dollars-to-donuts/id956673263Twitter https://twitter.com/steveportigalAbout Steve PortigalSteve Portigal helps companies to think and act strategically when innovating with user insights. His work has informed the development of professional audio gear, wine packaging, medical information systems, design systems, videoconferencing technology, and music streaming services. He’s also the host of the Dollars to Donuts podcast, where he interviews people who lead user research in their organizations. Steve is an accomplished presenter who speaks about culture, innovation, and design at companies and conferences across the globe.STEVE'S BOOKSInterviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling InsightsDoorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War StoriesFROM THE SHOWPurchase the Cognitive Bias Codex InfographicSlack channels:Go to this GREAT list of slack channels for UX including UXR********If you enjoy this podcast, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. rate & review us on Apple Podcast or iTunes on desktop!Listen Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake!uxcake.co | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked In

Bias Is The Context We're In

We're introducing a new series, called Learn UX, hosted by Leo Zhang. Leo started a meetup here in Seattle called Learn UX, aimed at UXers in earlier to mid-career, that hosts great speakers like Torry Podmajersky, who we had on our show talking about strategic UX writing back in episode 33. Leo is adapting his content to a podcast format for UX Cake, and we're trying out a three part series of to see how that resonates with our listeners. So we totally want to hear what you think about this! Chat us up on twitter or IG or FB or at uxcake.co (links below)From Learn UX: To kick off our collaboration with UX Cake, we are starting with a topic that would resonate with both Senior UX professionals as well as those just starting out: mentorship and hiring. Drory Ben-Menachem, currently Director of Product Design at Zonar Systems, has over 25 years experience working in a wide array of UX environments, as well as speaking at UX conference and guest lecturing at prominent schools such as The University of Washington. Throughout his entire career, he has always been passionate about all things revolving around mentorship. He’s written very well-received articles around mentorship such as Mentoring is a Mitzva and Mentoring ‘No-Hire’ Design Candidates. In this episode we talk about some of the lessons he’s learned along the way about both being a receptive mentee as well as being an effective mentor, and how his adventures in mentorship can help people of all levels of experience in our field.Drory has also been in multiple positions where he has served as a hiring manager, and he talks about how his experiences in mentoring has helped him make more informed UX hiring decisions. In this episode we will cover how fundamentally important mentorship is to grow as a UX professional as well as how it can help both hiring managers as well as job-seekers in the hiring process.From Leo: I am honored to be a part of UX Cake. It means a lot to me to be able to share my Learn UX community with a wide range of UX professionals from all around the world and I’d like to thank everyone for taking time out of your day to listen to our first collaboration episode!Leo Zhang, Founder of Learn UX SeattleAbout Drory:Designer, puzzle solver, idea shepherd, creative coach, storyteller, writer, researcher, mentor, data-viz geek, foodie, film buff, gamer, aspiring chef & rally driver.Born at a very young age, he made Seattle his home in 1991 and has enjoyed time at agencies, high-tech companies, and startups. Sometimes when it rains, he goes outside holding a cocktail umbrella and pretends he's a giant who makes bad decisions.Hopes one day someone will call him "sir" without adding "you're making a scene".Around the web:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/droryb/Medium: https://medium.com/@droryb

Learn UX: Mentoring and Hiring

Ep. 38: This week I got to talk with Jaime Levy, a UX pioneer, and Author of the book ‘UX Strategy’, about 'moving beyond’ being a designer or researcher in UX, and ‘leveling up’ in your career by moving into UX strategy or digital transformation. We talk about the difference between UX Strategy as a process or workflow vs. UX strategy as a role, and what that takes. Then we talk about Digital Transformation as the next step up in leveling up, from UX Strategy.There are many different definitions of ux strategy out there, if you google ‘ux strategy’ you’ll get many vague and even conflicting definitions. To set some context in case you haven’t read Jaime book, she defines as the intersection between business strategy and UX design, with a key component being early and continuous validation of the value proposition with customers. It’s a high-level plan of how your product or feature is going to achieve the business goals. About JaimeJaime Levy is an author, university professor and a user experience strategist. Her best-selling O’Reilly Media book is called UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want. The book presents a solid framework on the practice, which lies at the intersection of UX design and business strategy. For 30 years, Jaime has been an internationally recognized pioneer in the creation of innovative digital products and services. Website https://jaimelevy.com/LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimerlevy/Medium https://medium.com/@JaimeRLevyTwitter https://twitter.com/JaimeRLevyUX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People WantBy Jaime Levy ********If you enjoy this podcast, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. rate & review us on Apple Podcast or iTunes on desktop!Listen Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake!uxcake.co | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked In

Uplevel Your Career With UX Strategy

This episode was a live recording for the podcast at the 5th annual Radical Research Summit in Vancouver BC. Our panel topic was collaborative research - Working with people in other disciplines, in other teams, or even in other organizations to produce really impactful research that will get integrated into the experiences we’re creating. The panelists were Ariba Jahan, Innovation Director at Ad Council, Judd Antin, Director of Research at Airbnb, and Komal Faiz, a UX researcher at Zensurince. You’ll get a fuller introduction of them at the beginning of the panel.This episode is special not only because it was recorded live in front of an audience, it was also different because halfway through the panel the fire alarm went off! And yes, we had to evacuate the building. Although we are laughing about it now, it was not, in the moment, terribly funny. I was just thinking, how are we going to make this into an episode? I wasn’t worried about a fire. We edited it out for the podcast but you can see it unedited on our youtube channel. Fortunately, we were allowed back into the building about 10 minutes later to finish up with one last discussion point and then some really great questions and answers with the audience. About everything from who has the power to make decisions to working in agile ways to discovering and incorporating everyone’s knowledge into the process.If your organization or conference would like to host a live recording of the ux cake podcast, you can find out more about that by emailing us at team@uxcake.co. This was the 4th live recording ux cake has had and I mentioned I love doing this because there is such a physical sense of the community, and the community is why I and the rest of the volunteer team do this podcast. Also They’re really well- attended and they get great download numbers so it's a great way to spread the news about your organization to a global audience. OUR PANELISTSAriba Jahan As an immigrant Bengali woman that discovered her profound hearing loss at age eight, Ariba focuses on advocating for diverse, marginalized voices that are often overlooked and ensuring we bring humanity into tech. After a varied background including Biomechancial Engineering, engineering research publications, and a stint at medical school, Ariba lead operations and product management for industry-shifting startups. This work and her passion for social impact brought her to the Ad Council as the Director of Innovation, where she’s charged with scaling design thinking and agile practices, creating digital products to create measurable social impact, and exploring future-forward technology for the organization.https://www.linkedin.com/in/aribajahan/https://twitter.com/aribajahanJudd Antin is Director of Research at Airbnb, where he leads a global organization of over 100 amazing humans across 6 research functions. Prior to joining Airbnb in 2015, Judd was Research Manager at Facebook. Judd is a leader and grower of high-performing, fulfilled teams, and a strategic product and design thinker and doer. Always a researcher above all, Judd is deeply multi-method, fascinated by people and evidence.https://www.linkedin.com/in/juddantin/https://twitter.com/juddantinKomal Faiz is a UX researcher. She is a global shaper at the World Economic Forum (WEF); founder of Design Pakistan; runs a podcast called ‘South Asian Female Travellers’; and is a member of the 'Design Research Society.' She has a master’s in strategic foresight & innovation from OCADU, Canada. Prior to her current role at Zensurance, she worked as a design researcher for a project on 'women's mobility' funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, UK, in collaboration with Coventry University, University of Malaya, and Design Pakistan.https://twitter.com/komalfaizhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/komal-faiz********If you enjoy this podcast and if you think what we’re doing is useful and important, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. And we would love it if you would rate & review us on Apple Podcast!Listen Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake!uxcake.co | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked In

Collaborative Research

Ep 36: Sometimes words just can't get you the research insights you need. This week we’re talking about alternative ways of gathering insights in user research, beyond just verbal and written communication. There are many circumstances when words just aren’t the best way for people to tell us what they’re thinking, feeling, or doing, so being able to use physical or tactile methods can really affect the insights you’re able to gather. My guest today is Anna Macaranas who is a Senior Design Strategist at Digitalist Group & Network, in Vancouver BC. Anna has some great insights and examples for how to get participants to express themselves if words aren’t working.Anna is an award-winning researcher and strategist at Digitalist, a customer experience innovation company. Forever curious, she loves diving into a complex problem and understanding the context and factors that bring the team closer to the ideal solution. She’s passionate about helping companies build stronger relationships with their customers through organizational change, internal capability building and inclusive processes.Twitter https://twitter.com/annajlm Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-macaranas/If you want to help UX Cake, follow us on twitter, and subscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus content. Share this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. And we would love it if you would rate & review us on Apple Podcast!Listen Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake!uxcake.co | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked In

Research Beyond Words

For any experience you’re designing, you want to know what the current trends are, but if you’re looking for innovative solutions, you want to predict what future trends will affect your audiences' needs & motivations & obstacles so you can design for the future. Our topic this episode has a fairly unsexy name but is thoroughly intriguing — innovation-based trend forecasting. This isn’t currently a common methodology in UX today, but it’s something that could definitely be a game-changer for your organization.My guests are experts in trend forecasting: Lillian Pontius-Goldblatt is a senior strategist and brand storyteller at Carbone Smolan Agency, and Jennifer Passas is a brand strategist at Gensler. In this episode we’re talking about applying trend forecasting to your design practice. And this is not just focused on the design of a digital product though it can include that - but design as it applies to the larger human experience -- built environments, or workplace design, physical or organizational design, systems, services. And it includes all the roles that contribute to the creation of an experience, designers, researchers, PMs, developers and business leaders of all kinds.Lillian and Jennifer conducted a workshop at this year’s South by southwest about how individual’s and teams can incorporate the practice of innovation-based trend forecasting into their own process. They talk through the process in practice, as well as how they condensed the process into a workshop time-frame. Lillian will be presenting this process at this year's Radical Research Summit in Vancouver, BC, on Sept. 27th. This one-day conference focuses on UX research with a great line-up of speakers and diverse topics, and you can get a 20% discount if you use the promo code UXCAKE!FREE DOWNLOAD - Download Jennifer & Lillians 2-page guide & resources for creating a practice like this in your own team. Plus they have a list of resources to go to when you're looking for emerging trends!Lillian Pontius-Goldblatt is an adaptive, creative, and curious storyteller with proven skills in brand strategy, organizational culture, and research-based insights. She works as a senior strategist and brand storyteller at Carbone Smolan Agency where she leads brand projects for corporate and cultural clients, as well as the agency’s trend reporting practice.LinkedIn  Website - lillianpontiusgoldblatt.com/ Twitter - @Carbone_Smolan Medium - @lillianpontiusgoldblatt Agency website - carbonesmolan.comJennifer Passas is a brand and experience strategist from Vancouver, BC who currently lives in New York City. She has a BA in Art History from the University of Victoria and a Masters in Branding from the School of Visual Arts. Currently a Brand Strategy Lead at Gensler, Jennifer spends her days thinking of ways brands can come to life through analog and digital experiences in the built environment. She has expertise in naming, trend reporting and is a writer for PSFK.LinkedInAbout the Radical Research Summit The Radical Research Summit is an annual one-day event that brings together over 250 researchers, UX practitioners, ethnographers, product managers and businesses. Attendees will connect and learn from thought leaders in user experience research, emerging technology practitioners and world-class academic researchers. The day will provoke and inspire your team with new ideas while gaining practical and actionable insights to be more effective influencers and deliver research that has impact.Twitter - @radresearchvanFacebook - radresearchvan*****If you enjoy this podcast and if you think what we’re doing is useful and important, there are some really simple ways you can help us. You can follow us on twitter. You can like and reshare our posts. You can subscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus content. And you can share this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. And we would love it if you would rate & review us on Apple Podcast!Listen on Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake!Website: uxcake.co Facebook Twitter Instagram Subscribe to our newsletterDonate to UX Cake to keep the podcast going  

Design For The Future

Ep #34: Today’s episode is a conversation with Melanie Polkosky who is a UX Psychologist with a PhD in cognitive psychology and a long history in tech. After Melanie left a 13-year career at IBM, she wrote a book called Uncovering Truffles, a book about the scarcity and value of Women in Stem. And something she wrote about in her book stood out to me as really relevant to many people UX, across genders. In researching her book, Melanie found that certain cognitive styles can make it more difficult to get ahead in tech and leadership, and that contributes to holding many women back in STEM fields.And here’s the interesting connection to UX. Thinking styles that are more thoughtful, observational, perhaps more empathetic... the people with these cognitive styles can have a hard time fitting into tech teams, and in leadership roles especially. And, ironically, these cognitive styles — largely intuitive, an interest in people and behavior, and highly empathetic, are a common denominator in the discipline of UX, as I mentioned, across genders. So that’s what we’re digging into today - what can someone do if they find themselves in this place - a place where they feel like to they don’t fit in, or they feel undervalued or misunderstood? Fortunately for us, Melanie has great experience and some great advice.Melanie is a social-cognitive psychologist, a UX executive, and an author. She has deep expertise in speech technology, artificial intelligence and mixed method user research. She also holds the Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential from the International Coach Federation. Her coaching practice focuses on career and life coaching. Currently, Melanie leads design and UX as the SVP Customer Experience at Sweepr. Follow Melanie on Quora: Early Career UXBuy Melanie's bookUncovering Truffles: The Scarcity and Value of Women in STEM*****If you enjoy this podcast and if you think what we’re doing is useful and important, there are some really simple ways you can help us. You can follow us on twitter. You can like and reshare our posts. You can subscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus content. And you can share this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. And we would love it if you would rate & review us on Apple Podcast!Listen on Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake!Website: uxcake.co Facebook Twitter Instagram Subscribe to our newsletterDonate to UX Cake to keep the podcast going  

The Cognitive Diversity Issue in UX

Ep. #14 (re-run) Much of the work in UX and in our careers requires convincing others, about our ideas, our work, or our ability to do the work we want to do. My guest is Fiz Yazdi, a managing director at cxpartners in London and Bristol, UK. Fiz developed an approach to selling based on what’s called a ‘consultative’ model which Fiz adapted into a simple framework she uses in her own UX practice and has begun sharing it with others. ​​More about Fiz YazdiFiz is an enthusiastic design leader. She’s been consulting since the year 2000, tooling-up people, teams and organisations for success. She’s been on a journey from UX consultant to MD at cxpartners, helping it grow to one of the world’s leading independent innovation design consultancies. She's just started mentoring high growth, high tech start-ups too. Fiz always starts with people, and combines that with a deep respect for culture, business and technology to drive damn good work.Download Fiz Yazdi's Guide to Getting The Work You Want to Do www.cxpartners.co.ukTwitter: @cxpartners Connect with UX Cake!Website: uxcake.co Facebook Twitter Instagram  Subscribe to our newsletterDonate to UX Cake to keep the podcast going  Podcast music by hip-hop band Eaters (song Cruziero, album Simian Samba) Visit their page on Facebook to find more music

Getting The Work You Want

Ep #33: This week I’m talking with Torrey Podmajersky about her new book, Strategic Writing for UX - how to drive engagement, conversion, and retention with every word. Torrey is not only an expert at UX Writing, she’s an expert at getting the right words into the experience — which is half the challenge sometimes, even if you’ve determined what the right thing to say where is, getting the rest of the team to see the value can be harder than it should be. So of course, we talk about that. Her book has so many great tips and techniques and tools to help you determine the right words for your experience. We talked about how to incorporate that into your or your team’s process, how to measure the effectiveness of that, and how to prove out the value of effective UX writing to your stakeholders.This topic is so important for anyone who is involved with creating user experiences, because so many people in a team contribute to the words that a user sees.About Torrey Podmajersky:Torrey Podmajersky uses UX content to help teams meet business and customer goals. She speaks and teaches about UX writing, and she wrote Strategic Writing for UX (O’Reilly Media, 2019). Torrey has written UX content for Google, OfferUp, Xbox, and Microsoft. She teaches at Seattle’s School of Visual Concepts (SVC). She teaches teams and conference attendees how to write UX that solves problems for their organization and for the people who will use those organizations’ products and experiences.Connect and follow TorreyLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/torreybird/Website - torreypodmajersky.comSocial mediaTwitter - @torreybirdMedium - @torreypTHE BOOK YOU NEED TO BUYStrategic Writing for UX: Drive Engagement, Conversion, and Retention with Every Wordby Torrey PodmajerskyTHE EVENTS YOU NEED TO GO TOContent Strategy Meetup: Strategic Writing for UXAugust 8, 2019 - SeattleSeattle Interactive Conference Oct 17 & 18 - SeattleUX New Zealand October 30, 2019 - Wellington, NZTHE BAKERY YOU NEED TO VISITBorracchini's BakerySeattle's historic Italian bakery, tracing our roots back to our founding in 1922.Open 7 days a week2307 Rainier Ave SSeattle, WA 98144If you enjoy this podcast and if you think what we’re doing is useful and important, there are some really simple ways you can help us. You can follow us on twitter. You can like and reshare our posts. You can subscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus content. And you can share this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. And we would love it if you would rate & review us on Apple Podcast!Listen on Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake!Website: uxcake.co Facebook Twitter Instagram Subscribe to our newsletterDonate to UX Cake to keep the podcast going  

Words Make Experiences Work

Ep #32: Welcome back to UX Cake! We took a short break and now we're back on our regular publishing schedule. In this episode I talked with Tamara Adlin, a UX strategy expert, speaker, and author, who was a guest in season 1, episode 10, talking about creating alignment personas. This time we're talking about a really important topic that plagues many of us and that she is really passionate about, she’s been sharing her wisdom in meetups and conferences in Seattle, and I wanted to make this available to the larger UX community. Negotiating a salary or title in UX in in general is not easy, a lot of people struggle with translating their value in UX into business metrics. So it can be challenging for anyone, but many women especially have other internal hurdles to jump. Research has shown that women are much more likely to discount their own experience and value when it comes to salaries and titles. Tamara has some really great, specific and actionable advice for you, and although we’re talking about women in UX primarily, a lot of this is applicable to anyone who feels they aren’t great at negotiating.In this episode we talk about how to find your superpower and assign a value to it, how to prepare for a successful negotiation, and a few key steps to remember when you’re going through the negotiation process. Also some really great advice if you're asking for a raise or promotion.​​About Tamara Adlin Tamara Adlin is the President of Adlin, Inc, a one-woman Customer Experience Strategy consulting company in Seattle, WA. She works with early-stage startups, and big companies trying to act like startups, to bring customer focus to the business teams and business savvy to the design teams. She has written several books on Personas, including her latest website on Alignment Personas. She has also developed a reputation as an un-boring speaker and teacher on everything from personas to the art of negotiating as a UX professional (especially if you are a woman.)Linked In Twitter @tamaraadlin Read Tamara’s article: Elation/Deflation: The Responsibility of Being an Experienced Woman in Tech (or any business)Check out Tamara’s Office HoursCheck out the Ladies Get Paid WebsiteYou’ll find articles, webinars, events, lots of great resources for you there.  If you enjoy this podcast and if you think what we’re doing is useful and important, there are some really simple ways you can help us. You can follow us on twitter. You can like and reshare our posts. You can subscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus content. And you can share this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. And we would love it if you would rate & review us on Apple Podcast! Connect with UX Cake!Website: uxcake.co Facebook Twitter Instagram Subscribe to our newsletterDonate to UX Cake to keep the podcast going Podcast music by hip-hop band Eaters (song Cruziero, album Simian Samba)

Negotiate the Salary & Title You Deserve

This week's episode was a live recording at the ConveyUX conference in early March with a panel of UX pros talking about Influencing without authority, which is such an important topic and clearly very relevant based on the turn-out - it was standing room only. This episode is almost twice as long as our normal episodes — but you won’t want to miss the second half, where we turned it over to audience members to ask advice about their own situations, kind of mini-mentoring sessions, on a variety of things, from getting stakeholders to respect your quantitative research, to dealing with others’ biases that undermine your authority. We had a real diversity of experience in the panel which made for such an amazing conversation, and the audience was great — really engaged. This is really what UX Cake is about, that synergy that can happen when we come together as a community so I love doing live recordings.If you enjoy this podcast, join the UX Cake community by following us on social media - twitter, FB, Instagram… and if you like this episode, share it with a colleague or two, send them a link to this episode. Those are the ways we’re growing UX Cake, where our mission is to strengthen the UX community by helping ux pros become more effective in their work and careers. It only takes a moment, and it helps us so much!Connect with UX Cake!Website: uxcake.co Facebook Twitter Instagram Subscribe to our newsletterDonate to UX Cake to keep the podcast going Subscribe to UX Cake: iTunes| Stitcher  | EmailUX Cake Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/uxcakeiTunes | Google Podcast | Stitcher | TuneInSubscribe in iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ux-cake/id1350595015?mt=2

Influencing Without Authority

This week we’re talking about incorporating UX into an Agile product development process. It’s been a common complaint for the past couple of decades most agile processes don’t allow time for ux research and design. Teams that want the best human-centered design outcomes have to be intentional about that and it means adjusting their agile processes in some way, so they can use ux resources more effectively. But many teams don’t even know they need to do this, or if they do know they have issues with their UX, they don’t know how or what to change. Today we’re talking with Shayna Atkins who is an agile expert and a big proponent of incorporating UX into Agile.Shayna is an agile coach and founder of Atkco Inc in Chicago. she's worked with organizations large and small, from corporations and startups to universities and non-profits, and she has success stories that prove that the most successful agile framework is one that incorporates UX research and design in the process from the start, where it brings high value. She’s got great examples of what this approach looks like and techniques to accomplish it. and She also has some great ideas about how anyone in an organization can advocate for these kind of changes, to see more effective outcomes.Oh, and if you enjoy this content, please, take just a moment to rate and review us in iTunes or apple podcast, it would mean so much to us. And thank you SVC, the school of visual concepts here in Seattle, for leaving a nice review and also for recommending us to your students! The feeling is mutual - and That’s how our community grows. OK let’s talk about getting more effective and agile.Shayna is a founder, product manager, and Agile coach. A product development expert,  Shayna Atkins has managed and coached multi-million dollar IT transformations for 8 years. The brains of Agile operations, she most recently stood up an Agile Release Train for a fortune 500 Financial Services company.@shaynaatkinsatkcoinc.com/joinSpotify FrameworkScaled Agile FrameworkConnect with UX Cake!Website: uxcake.co Facebook Twitter Instagram Subscribe to our newsletterDonate to UX Cake to keep the podcast going Subscribe to UX Cake: iTunes | Google Podcast | Stitcher | TuneIn

When UX and Agile Meet...

Helping you become more effective in your UX work and career. We talk with experienced pros and industry leaders to share practical advice on building skills that get the best outcomes for our users, our teams, and our UX life. UX life is hard... eat more cake.

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UX Cake

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