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 out if you have a good idea. As you're going around designing things, running a company, being an entrepreneur—whatever it is that you do in your work life or your daily life—you probably have all kinds of ideas that you're really excited about, and you're probably thinking, ‘Hey, is there some way I could tell early on without investing a lot of time and energy and resources if this is actually an idea that has legs for people?’ ... Rapid experimentation is a technique for creatin

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 science, and what people really look for in a voice assistant.Here are some highlights: Why it's important for product designers to understand how the brain works I think that by knowing a little bit more about the brain—what draws your attention, how you hold things in memory, how you make decisions, and how emotions can cloud those decisions...the constellation of all these different pieces helps us make sure we're thinking like our audience and trying to discover their frame of...lit

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 highlights: The challenges of designing secret projects The Windows Automotive project I worked on at Microsoft wasn't fully 'tented,' but it was kind of hush-hush, so I thought I was prepared when I went to work at Amazon on the Echo Look. But this was...I had never experienced anything truly this secretive. As a designer, being cut off and unable to talk about what you're working on cuts off a part of your process in a way that is a little disorienting. You cannot openly go to customers and ask them questions. You

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 highlights: Design at Shopify At Shopify, we have more than 2,000 employees, so we're starting to become quite large. We don't have a design department per say; we have a UX umbrella, and under that UX umbrella, we have designers, content strategists, UX researchers, and front-end developers. So, it’s slightly different than some other companies, where front-end developers are working within the UX team. We try to have someone from all disciplines on every project. Some p

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 past few years, Microsoft reemphasized its mission to connect and learn from customers, so we're seeing a sort of Renaissance period at the company where there's this kind of recommitment to being customer obsessed. This isn't something that's unique to Microsoft; you see this with other companies as well, that folks aregetting hip to the idea that in order to make great products, you’ve got to listen to your customers and you’ve got to do it in a procedural way—you can't just comb the feedback forums a

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 product manager is all about being the connective tissue, the glue that connects whatever the different roles are within your organization. The specific organizational roles might vary, depending on where you are. You might be working more closely with technical people. You might be working more closely with marketing people, but whoever those different players are, your job as product manager is to be the aligner in chief or translator in chief, the person who is ultimately responsible and accountable for everybody havi

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. From a soft skills perspective, don't be a jerk. That's the first thing. Aggregated data wins a lot of debates around the workplace. So, come prepared. Kindness, humility, living in reality—I think those are simple things that continually come to the forefront that need to be restated all the time when you're working in a cross-functional environment. The way people experience you and the way you experience others really has to do with two things: conflict versus context. I think great leaders

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 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 courses: Learning UX Research: Understanding Methods and Techniques—May 8 or July 10, 2017. Learning UX Research: Analyzing Data and Sharing Results—May 22 or July 24, 2017. Here are a few highlights from our conversation: Asking the right questions The best way to understand if your product or service is resonating with the customers is through some sort of observation. Regardless of your role within an organization, I think everyone should have some awarene

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 Pinto This was the '60s, and they were trying to make a car that was very cheap, very light, and the market was very competitive. And, again, the reason we chose to put this story in, is that there are so many facets that apply directly to designers’ everyday work. Try to empathize with the business as well—even just an extra $25 dollars per car; the cars cost $2,000 at that time, so charging an extra $25 dollars per car could price you out of the market. The sensitivity on price was really big. And one thing th

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 problems.Here are a few highlights from our conversation: Design at Amazon Typically, design is organized at Amazon in one of two ways. The first category is, as a designer, you would probably work with the storage team, database team, and networking team. You're sort of the go-to designer for a variety of the product offerings that that larger class of technology has. So, you might be working on two or three products at once for a couple of weeks at a time. Get a new feature out, get a revision out, and then switch to s

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 as part of the upcoming O'Reilly Design Conference.Here are some highlights from our conversation: Lean Analytics and Lean Startup I think many people will have had this experience where they have an idea, they think it's a great idea. They go out and build something, and they invest heavily in that, from a people perspective, from an hours, from a dollars perspective. They launch it, and nobody cares, or not enough people care, let's say. You realize, wait a second, I've made all these mis

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 founders of Allbirds, Tim Brown, is an ex-professional soccer player. Obviously, footwear was really big in what he was doing. He also went through design school in Cincinnati, but he was being sent shoes and taking a look at the landscape, and he realized that there's no real innovation and thoughtfulness in the shoe category. There's definitely technology and a lot of graphical doodads appearing on shoes, but no company has committed to real innovation to benefit the industry or the world, actually.

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 in systems, building bridges Broadly across Microsoft, I'll just say, there are so many different types of design challenges that we're working on. One of the things that consistently is true is that people look to take on some of the biggest challenges facing our society. There's a lot that comes across the plate of our designers at Microsoft. People who can meet those challenges with an open sense of collaboration and partnership, but also with a very human-led approach to those problems. Really bei

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 could very confidently get on one side of it with a lot of arguments that I think are quite valid, but you can look at other products, at other organizations, other teams that don't work that way and are also making great products or experiences. It's not like there's one way. The sentiment in it, though, is that deeply understanding how things are put together, how they function, and why they work, makes you better at making them. I really believe that. I think this is true from a business stand

The O’Reilly Design Podcast: Identifying use cases for robots, the five laws of robots, and the ethics and philosophy of robotics.In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Andra Keay, managing director of Silicon Valley Robotics. We talk about the evolution of robots, applications that solve real problems, and what constitutes a good robot. Here are some highlights from our conversation: The evolution of robots Silicon Valley is becoming the epicenter of robotics. I've been managing the Industry Group, which started as seeing robotics as a very small and new industry and Silicon Valley, as more or less an unknown area of the robotics.I think in the last five years, that's changed significantly; now, people look to Silicon Valley to see what is happening in robotics and AI. It seems like every major company and every government now has robotics and AI on their strategic road map. That's just the measure of how things have shifted in that spectrum between research and the real w

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 and ground data system manager, for the Resource Prospector 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 NASA As far as Agile goes in my group, it was probably around 10 years ago when we started to become Agile; we didn't really set out with a stated goal of being Agile, at least not in the beginning.  We were having issues with our software development and we were trying to make it better, and by iteratively solving problems, we found we were starting to match—what was then certainly much less mainstream than it is now—the Agile method. We had a six-month delivery cycle. We would take a set of requirements, and then we'

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 design collaborative that I run. It's called SuperFriendly, and I'm the only full-time employee, but oftentimes the projects we do have multiple people on them. The business model is called the Hollywood Model if anybody wants to research it. Of course, I brand it and I call it the ‘Super Friend Model.’ Basically what that means is that for every project that SuperFriendly does, I bring together a team of people to work on those projects. Some of those are contractors, some of those are ot

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 challenge that you want to take on in your life?’ This was what it was, the culture at Capital One—we're a founder-led company, which I don't think many people know. We just started in the 90s. We're not that old. I think there's a natural entrepreneurial culture already here that I got to step into, and it enables me to still be entrepreneurial and enables me to still be curious. People want to do great work, and they're excited to come to work—and all of that makes for the kind of culture

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.’ I was talking about this at O’Reilly Bot Day last week. For example: my Amazon Echo. I don’t view the Amazon Echo generally as conversational because most of the things I do are one-offs. I’ll say, ‘What time is it?’ or ‘Turn on the lights’ or ‘Set a timer,’ and she’ll give me one response, and we’re done. If I go up to you and say, ‘How are you doing today?’ and you say, ‘Fine,’ and then we turn and walk away, I don’t really see that as having a conversation. That would not be a very good conversation. One of m

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 people who teach will tell you it's a great way to reexamine what you believe about a given topic, since you have to explain it and repackage it for others. I started Design Equation to address a couple of problems that I'd been seeing in my career. The first issue is basically around the cost of design. Very often in my career, there'd be a client that I wanted to work with. They had a really cool product or a really great mission, but the economics of it just didn