While we’ve been developing design systems for years, we’re only just now learning how to create systems that are successful and sustainable. Dan Mall is the author of the soon-to-be released Design That Scales: Creating a Sustainable Design System Practice, which explores the cultural elements that contribute to sustainable design systems. Not surprisingly, it’s usually pain that motivates change. In fact, companies occupying the number one spot in their respective markets usually have the least incentive to change. As the saying goes, “Number two tries harder.” But even in the most-ready-for-change scenarios, design systems sit, at best, at a third level of priority. Dan asserts that the challenge is to approach design systems as a byproduct of the products and features that bring customers value. Otherwise, design systems will always be on the backburner. Dan and Lou discuss tricky topics around design systems: - Designers’ fear of job loss to design systems. - As we move toward sustainable design systems, who should make the decisions? Who does what and when? - How to approach design systems in a sustainable way. - The best way for product and systems teams to collaborate. What you’ll learn from this episode: - Why culture, rather than product maturity, will determine whether design systems are successful - How to address fears of job loss as a result of design systems - How to keep people motivated through a systems change - How product and design teams can work together efficiently - How design systems have changed over time - The role of governance in systems change - Why following precedent within your company will get you farther faster Quick Reference Guide [0:00:32] Introduction of Dan Mall and his book Design that Scales – Creating a Sustainable Design System Practice [0:04:49] On reaching cultural alignment [0:07:01] What prompts design systems change [0:09:26] When jobs feel threatened [0:12:21] Cultural signs and markers of design system success [0:16:59] November 29th, 2023 – Design in Product Conference [0:18:20] On governance and sustainability [0:24:44] On collaboration between product and design teams [0:27:33] The evolution of design systems for ICs [0:30:35] Design Systems University [0:32:38] Dan’s gift to listeners Resources and links from today’s episode: Design in Product Conference on November 29, 2023 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/design-in-product Design Systems University https://designsystem.university/ The Useful School https://usefulschool.com

Guest Steve Portigal, author, user researcher, consultant, and teacher discusses the second edition of his book 'Interviewing Users' and the evolving field of user research. They highlight changes in consumer behavior and expectations, as well as the importance of analysis and synthesis in research. The podcast also explores Steve's humanizing writing style and excitement for future book releases.

Sahibzada Mayed and Lauren Lin will be speakers at the upcoming DesignOps Summit on October 2-4, 2023. Their talk, “Cultivating Design Ecologies of Care, Community, and Collaboration,” will showcase the intersection of care-centeredness and design operations. Lauren has wanted to be a designer since she was in third grade. What kind of designer? An “everything” designer! From a young age, she embraced the idea that “you can design anything” from fashion to environments to moods and feelings. Today she employs ethical research practices and co-design to shift power and amplify youth voices, design toys, and bring play into her work at Ideo Play Lab. Mayed has a social service and social impact background. Through a community-oriented storytelling approach, they co-lead strategy and research at Cause and Affect, a relational design consultancy in Canada. Lauren and Mayed’s partnership began with conversations and exploration about what they could do to shift power dynamics and create more cohesive and engaging designs for all. The biggest hindrance, say Lauren and Mayed, is power hierarchies. Design leaders need to critically think about social identities, institutional positions, and other complexities and dimensions. How power shows up in our practices is always shifting and changing, and decentralizing power has to be an ongoing and emergent process. And it all starts with ideas and conversations. Mayed and Lauren have found that speculative design is a powerful way to reflect on the “now” and dream about what the future could look like. All real-world shifts begin with ideas, relationships, and conversations. These elements are at the heart of design. What you’ll learn from this episode: - About Lauren and Mayed’s backgrounds - How their partnership came about - About the talk titled “Cultivating Design Ecologies of Care, Community, and - Collaboration” that they will deliver at October’s DesignOps Summit - About power hierarchies in design and what design leaders can do to help decentralize power - About the role and potential of speculative design Quick Reference Guide [0:00:19] Introduction of Sahibzada Mayed and Lauren Lin [0:01:03] Mayed and Lauren’s backgrounds [0:05:53] The working partnership between Mayed and Lauren [0:08:45] Power hierarchies and design [0:11:56] The DesignOps leader’s role [0:15:26] Alternative means of engagement [0:18:36] DesignOps Summit, October 2-6, 2023 [0:19:59] A care-centered approach to the future through establishing patterns [0:24:37] Mayed and Lauren’s gifts for the audience Resources and links from today’s episode: Ideo Play Lab – https://ideoplaylab.com/ Cause + Affect – https://causeandaffect.com/ Planet Justice Textbook from Slow Factory – https://shop.slowfactory.earth/products/planet-justice-textbook “The Mind-Body Check for Radical Research” Google doc - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OBViDEMBh9lYndX-_gNI_5LNMPfMFhCA-Mek6M-VnGI/edit DesignOps Assembly - https://www.designopsassembly.com/

Zariah Cameron is Co-Director of Community + Research and the founder of AEI – Advocate, Educate, Innovate Black Design. She will be a speaker at October’s DesignOps Summit on streamlining an inclusive design practice. Many companies and corporations have good intentions when it comes to inclusive design. But too often that’s where things both start and stop. Zariah helps companies operationalize their inclusive design principles and ideals by looking at design from all angles and instilling effective processes. When exploring ideals of equity and inclusivity, many confuse inclusivity with accessibility. Accessibility is a fine place to start, but it’s just the beginning. Accessibility tends to be passive while inclusivity is active. Inclusive design proactively seeks out the marginalized, the underserved, and minority groups. It doesn’t make assumptions but seeks input, feedback, and follow-through. For many companies, the most effective way to pursue inclusive design is to work with grassroots organizations. Partnering with such organizations provides corporations access to a diverse pool of participants. It’s a process of co-creation and involves a long-haul-relationship mentality. Zariah mentions a variety of organizations that design teams could partner with to access diverse talent: Creative Reaction Lab Pause and Effect Aroko Cooperative – seeking equity, liberation, community healing, and ecocentricy What you’ll learn from this episode: About Zariah’s talk at the upcoming October 2024 DesignOps Summit How inclusive design differs from accessibility How companies can proactively partner with organizations to access a wide range of underserved and marginalized participants Quick Reference Guide [0:00:37] Introduction of Zariah [0:02:04] Inclusive design [0:04:11] An example of a principle that needs to be operationalized [0:05:25] How to take a more operational approach to inclusive design [0:08:04] Inclusivity is active, not passive. It’s also relational. [0:14:18] Inclusivity is relational and communal [0:15:03] More on the AEI organization [0:17:24] Other work with HBCU students [0:19:40] A reminder about the October 2-4 DesignOps Summit [0:20:48] Organizations to partner with to advance inclusivity and equity [0:24:21] Zariah’s gift for listeners Resources and links from today’s episode: Creative Reaction Lab - https://crxlab.org/ Pause and Effect - https://www.pauseandeffect.ca/ Aroko Cooperative - https://www.aroko.coop/ State of the Black Design Conference in March 2024 - https://www.thesobd.com/ DesignOps Assembly - https://www.designopsassembly.com/

Jay Bustamante has always been about conserving time and resources by building tight processes to create efficiencies in his life and work. In all the jobs and positions he’s held, he would notice gaps, consult with stakeholders, find solutions, and fill those gaps. Eventually he learned there is a name for this type of work: DesignOps. Today Jay is a DesignOps leader and an experienced strategist at VMware. And he’ll be a speaker at the October 2023 DesignOps Summit. When it comes to streamlining and building efficiencies, AI seems like a no-brainer, right? Not so fast. AI brings big expectations and can result in a lot of frustration if proper groundwork isn’t laid. DesignOps teams that proactively facilitate collaboration between engineers, business teams, end users, and other stakeholders can save time, money, and greatly increase the likelihood of a successful product that will reflect the company’s values. In this episode, Jay and Lou explore the following concerning AI: • Good data makes all the difference • Why AI can easily reinforce existing biases • Why case studies and knowing the most impactful need are crucial • Setting proper expectations • Why Design’s role is to slow things down and to make sure that the right people are invited to the conversation, that the right questions are asked, and that all voices are heard early in the process. What you’ll learn from this episode: • How Jay got where he is today • How to slow down the development of AI solutions to avoid ethical and technical snafus • Which voices need to be at the planning table • How DesignOps can steer the design boat and keep everyone on the same page with the same goals • How companies (even big ones like Amazon) can get tripped up when AI reinforces biases Quick Reference Guide [0:00:25] Introduction of Jay and the October 2-4 Design Ops Summit [0:02:11] Jay’s professional journey into design ops [0:05:36] Jay joined VMware to do strategy work and ended up doing design ops work [0:07:35] AI in a design ops context [0:10:32] An example from Amazon of AI-aided hiring gone wrong [0:15:39] Design Ops Summit – October 2-4, 2023 [0:17:01] On being proactive with use cases and identifying red flags and slowing down [0:22:13] On being careful with data [0:25:43] On bringing voices together and being a facilitator [0:28:09] Jay’s gift to listeners Resources and links from today’s episode: DesignOps Assembly - https://www.designopsassembly.com/ AI Fairness 360 by IBM - https://www.ibm.com/opensource/open/projects/ai-fairness-360/ Fairkit-Learn (Python)- https://pypi.org/project/fairkit-learn/ DesignOps Summit 2023 - https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designopssummit2023

Jenae Cohn is executive director at the Center for Teaching and Learning at UC Berkeley and, along with Michael Greer, author of the new book Design for Learning: User Experience in Online Teaching and Learning. Jenae and Michael’s book helps designers create compelling educational content. Think of it as required reading for anyone designing an online course, webinar, training, or workshop. Designing a platform intended to educate goes beyond traditional UX design. Jenae’s book does the following: • Looks at the science behind learning and articulates how to help someone be a learner • Helps designers understand the complex array of needs that learners have and create more purposeful learning experiences Learning is motivated by social interactions and emotions. In fact, the learning process is typically social, and most are motivated knowing that they’re not learning in isolation but in or for community. Designers should capitalize on these motivations. Tips for making online learning more social: • Take “temperature” checks throughout the course – for example, a poll or quiz • Allow comments on shared artifacts and shared annotation • Prompt discussions and assign roles if needed • Remember that a webinar will not necessarily create a social experience As designers get started on creating online instructional material, Jenae reminds them to be kind to themselves. After all, designing for learners is an iterative learning process. Also, it’s critical to create checkpoints and opportunities along the way to garner feedback. With the aid of Jenae and Michael’s book, we can depart from the days of dull online courses and make them truly vibrant spaces of growth. What you’ll learn from this episode • Why typical online learning platforms are so dull and what can be done differently to make them more engaging and compelling • How instructional designers and UX designers can learn from one another • How designers can make online learning more social • How designers can know if they’re meeting their goals Quick Reference Guide [0:00:21] Introduction of Jenae Cohn [0:01:41] Design for Learning – Why we need a UX book for learning/teaching products [0:05:17] Why UX designers may be surprised by what they didn’t know about designing with learning in mind [0:08:58] What instructional designers can learn from UX designers [0:12:14] Hybrid environments in learning products [0:15:07] DesignOps Summit – Oct 2-6, 2023 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designopssummit2023/ [0:16:13] Learning is social – how to help online learners stay engaged [0:24:58] How a designer can determine if their learners have had a good outcome [0:30:40] Advice for designers moving into the learning design space [0:33:29] Jenae’s gift to listeners Resources and links from today’s episode: Design for Learning: User Experience in Online Teaching and Learning by Jenae Cohen and Michael Greer https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/design-for-learning/ The UX of Educational Technology Community https://www.uxedtech.com

Not too long ago, Donna Lichaw, author of The User’s Journey, was helping companies solve product problems by organizing the experience of a product or service into a narrative arc where the user is the hero. Then she ran into a question that she couldn’t shake — a question that, once answered, would morph her business from product development to leadership development. The question unveiled a people problem rather than a product problem. “We don’t have problems bringing products into the world. We have problems getting along with everyone, feeling good about our work, building team morale, dealing with internal fighting. We’ve been helping our customers be heroes. How can I be a hero?” Over seven years of researching how to help leaders be heroes, she found inspiration in a variety of places, including Gestalt therapy, narrative therapy, and executive and somatic coaching. Her conclusion can be found in her new book, The Leaders Journey: Transforming Your Leadership to Achieve the Extraordinary. Think of the book as a map for people to become the natural leaders they already are and can be through a process of radical acceptance that leads to real, lasting change. People grow into superhero leaders when they fully embrace themselves — strengths and weaknesses. Donna’s approach to leadership is a refreshing departure from the typical advice of talk louder, take up more space, and listen more. This is a different — a journey that is unique to each individual. • Discover your superpowers. When you’re not leveraging your superpowers at work, you’re not as powerful as you could be. When you contain your superpowers, you’ll feel sad, depressed, and restricted. • Know your kryptonite too. When you understand the “why” behind your weaknesses, you’ll often find a superpower underneath. By embracing your quirks and appreciating how they serve you, you’ll open yourself to insights about how to move forward. What you’ll learn from this episode: • Why Donna felt compelled to transition her business into leadership coaching • About the two books Donna has written for Rosenfeld Media • Why one-size-fits-all leadership programs are a dead end • How appreciating your weaknesses can lead to self-discovery and growth Quick Reference Guide [0:00:51] Introduction of Donna Lichaw and a brief summary of her book The User’s Journey [0:02:23] About the origins of The Leader’s Journey: Transforming Your Leadership to Achieve the Extraordinary, Donna’s new book [0:03:10] Donna recalls leading a workshop that raised an important question [0:07:44] Looking for inspiration and resources to answer the question, “How can I be a hero?” [0:11:24] Finding value in everything, yet recognizing what is less helpful [0:13:57] Dealing with leadership stereotypes and churn [0:19:10] Enterprise UX 2023 [0:21:15] All leaders have superpowers and kryptonite [0:26:06] Leaning into your personal kryptonite [0:30:25] How the adult film industry and literary smut fit into all of this [0:35:06] Donna’s gift for listeners – access to her work! Resources and links from today’s episode: • Enterprise UX 2023 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/enterprise-ux-2023/ • Donna’s amazing toolkit https://www.donnalichaw.com/toolkit • The Leader’s Journey: Transforming Your Leadership to Achieve the Extraordinary by Donna Lichaw https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/leaders-journey/ • The User’s Journey: Storymapping Products that People Love by Donna Lichaw https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/storymapping/

Boon Yew Chew, senior principal UX designer at Elsevier, discusses how systems thinking can be a relational tool and improve relationships within organizations. He explains the history and development of systems thinking and its holistic perspective. Systems thinking helps answer questions about individuals' roles within a system and how organizations fit into larger systems. The podcast also explores the application of systems thinking in design work and its impact on UX professionals.

Ren Pope has a passion for all things data, information, and knowledge, and he strives to make them more accessible, organized, and enduring. You may be surprised that this conversation about information architecture takes us back to classic Greek philosophy, specifically ontology, which is concerned with the nature of being—that is, what is real and not real. What is inside a computer cannot be seen, yet it is real in the sense that it has value and can impact reality. And as a modern ontologist, Ren wants to make information accessible and useful. That often starts with assigning names to things—nouns and verbs to label the functions of an organization so that things can be indexed, searched, retrieved, crosslinked, and so that relationships can be defined through metadata. It’s a complicated process for small businesses and consultants, and the challenges rise exponentially for enterprises with multiple departments and silos. With 60 years of shared experience, Ren and Lou remember when companies were dependent on Excel Spreadsheets and PowerPoint to manage the complexities of a living and evolving organization (many still are!). Today there are multiple options for organizing both structured and unstructured data, and thanks to ontologists like Ren, the tools are getting better. Lou and Ren’s discussion spans from the philosophical to the practical. Ren shares some concrete ways to use ontological thinking in your everyday work: • Find all the nouns and verbs your organization uses to describe its functions. • Define what you are trying to accomplish. • Focus your scope. The narrower the domain, or the more specific the task, the easier your task will be. If you don’t have a narrow, well-defined scope, you will probably over-collect data. • Find how the nouns and verbs interact. • Have a method for maintaining your data. Ren will be presenting at the upcoming 2023 Enterprise UX conference June 6-7: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/enterprise-ux-2023/ What you’ll learn from this episode: • About classic ontology and how it relates to the digital age • How information architecture has evolved over the last 30 years • What is ontological thinking and how to incorporate it into your work • The relationship between information architects, engineers, and the end user • About the upcoming Enterprise UX Conference in June: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/enterprise-ux-2023/ Quick Reference Guide • [0:00:58] Introduction of Ren Pope • [0:02:17] Ontologist vs information architect vs interactive designer vs knowledge manager • [0:06:00] Ontology within organizations and particular challenges for enterprises • [0:09:50] Metadata for structured and unstructured data • [0:14:01] LLM summaries, single metadata terms, abstracts, summaries – they all have their place and all can work together • [0:18:50] How normal people can benefit from ontology or better IA at an enterprise level • [0:23:28] Data needs to be captured, managed, and represented • [0:27:41] A glimpse of the back-in-the-day solutions, like Excel Spreadsheets and PowerPoint, and how far we’ve come • [0:29:40] The scale of volume and complexity of the enterprise environment keeps growing. Is technology keeping up? • [0:35:08] Ren’s gift to the audience – Mettle Health: https://www.mettlehealth.com

Erica Jorgensen is one of Rosenfeld Media’s newest authors with the publication of her book, Strategic Content Design: Tools and Research Techniques for Better UX. ( https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/strategic-content-design/ ) With a background in journalism, her book draws on her experiences as a content designer with the likes of Chewy, Microsoft, Slack, Amazon, Starbucks, Nordstrom, and Expedia. Erica’s book is a toolkit of research techniques for anyone struggling to create content that makes an impact. Not all companies have dedicated research budgets or teams, yet research can save us from redos and yield more targeted, effective content. Without research, you may be flying blind without even realizing it. We assume the words and phrases on our websites and apps are effective, and a little due diligence can confirm those assumptions or enlighten us about something that was previously completely outside our awareness. Erica warns us to be prepared because content research will open proverbial cans of worms. False assumptions will be exposed, and what you learn may take your work in unexpected directions. Oftentimes, the whole company will need to get on board when language has to be changed or cleaned up. In a nutshell, content research will expose problems. But it will help you make progress, and the payoff is worth it. What you’ll learn from this episode: • About Erica’s career journey in content design • Case study: The impact of one company’s confusing language, and how content research came to the rescue • How to incorporate content research into non-research roles • How to prioritize and strategize content research • How to harness content audits to highlight what needs attention • Why it’s important to present your team’s work in the most flattering light possible