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

Lisanne Norman entered the tech field as a UX researcher in 2015 and quickly advanced to lead researcher at Dell, then Visa. She founded Black UX Austin and was the UX lead researcher at Gusto. And then she left in 2022. Because she had had enough. And because she wanted to make a difference. She is now co-director of DEI at the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. In today’s interview, Lisanne shares her career journey and the tools she acquired in various positions along the way. We get a glimpse of what it’s like to be a Black woman in tech. We also get a hint at what it might take to keep a Black woman (or other individuals from marginalized groups) in the space. We hear of the microaggressions that can and do occur in the workplace, and Lisanne helps us imagine the exhaustion of functioning in such an environment day after day. She has worked in established, entrenched cultures and in young, seemingly flexible startups, and she found that both environments are lacking in their efforts to bring marginalized people groups to the table. Lisanne will be sharing more at Advancing Research 2023, March 27-29. Her talk is “Why I Left Research.” What you’ll learn from this episode: • What the UX research world looks like from a Black woman’s point of view • The types of microaggressions Lisanne endured in the workplace and public places like airports • Why being a marginalized voice at work – even in a young, flexible culture – can be exhausting • The difference between culture-fit and culture-add • What companies need to do to attract and retain BIPOC employees – and why it’s worth the effort to do so Quick Reference Guide • [00:15] Introduction of Lisanne • [01:38] Lisanne explains how she stumbled upon research as a possible career and found herself working for Dell • [05:19] Lisanne’s time working directly with Dell as part of their design team and her later transition to Visa • [12:40] Lisanne explains the frustrations she endured at Visa and her switch to a young e-commerce company • [19:13] Feeling weighed down by microaggressions, keeping notes, and educating those who should know better • [21:13] Covid, taking a break, Black UX Austin, Gusto, and George Floyd • [27:55] BREAK: Books recently published by Rosenfeld Media • [30:08] On what it would take for Lisanne to get back into UX research • [35:01] On the potential of learning from past modules of successful “adding” • [37:41] Lisanne’s gift to our listeners: POCIT (People of Color in Tech)

Jill has been listening to customers and clients for over 20 years. She has worked for organizations like Etsy and Blue Apron, and has since started Field Notes Consulting, a research and strategic planning practice serving both public and private sectors. She is method-agnostic, harnesses full-stack research, and interrogates all data to get to the real data or the root cause. While hard data and numbers are important, data alone does not equal insight. Making sense of the data often requires listening to customers, human-scale frameworks of things like journeys and experience mapping, and, of course, minimizing researchers’ biases. It’s often the outside-in perspective that brings it all together to give us insight that will highlight consequences and implications. Jill is a champion of what she calls “interventions” and doing interventions across silos. She shares an example from her time at Blue Apron that beautifully illustrates how one research silo can lose direction without insight from other silos. Some interventions Jill recommends include: • Remember that everyone in the organization is on the same team and after the same goal • Encourage observation • Bring cross-functional teams together • Fit KPIs and OKRs in the story of the user Jill will be leading a session, “Inconvenient Insights: The Researcher’s Role is to Stay Curious,” and a workshop, “Holistic Insights: Collapsing Functional Silos for Maximum Impact” at the Advancing Research Conference March 27-29, 2023. What you’ll learn from this episode: • How Jill defines insight and why it won’t be uncovered from hard data alone • How “interventions” across silos can help everyone in the organization win • A taste of what Jill will cover in her talk and workshop at Advancing Research 2023 Quick Reference Guide [00:00] Introduction of Jill [01:50] Jill’s role at Advancing Research Conference March 27-29th, 2023 [02:27] Jill’s love-hate relationship with data [07:25] How we get insights from data [09:36] Lessons from Blue Apron [14:13] How to perform or support interventions [21:54] On interventions outside your area of expertise and considering the interconnectivity of the entire organization [30:43] Looking back on information and library science school [34:52] Jill’s book recommendation [36:49] Jill’s session and workshop at the upcoming Advancing Research Conference in March

Prayag Narula is the founder and CEO of Marvin, a tool for qualitative researchers. Prayag will also be a speaker at the Advancing Research Conference where he’ll share the stage with Rida Qadri, a research scientist at Google. Humans have been doing quantitative research for thousands of years – well, for as long as math has been around. Qualitative research, on the other hand, is fairly new to human history, emerging only in the 20th Century. And qualitative research has taken a backseat to what Prayag calls “the tyranny of math,” the prevailing attitude that if research is not math-based, it’s not valid. But that doesn’t diminish the importance of qualitative data. Decisions at all levels are made based on qualitative data every day. Here are some characteristics of qualitative research: • Qualitative research is scientific and has been used in the social sciences for scientific discovery for six decades. • Qualitative data is highly variable and semi-structured, so creating software for it has enormous challenges. • Taking notes and asking questions are inherent parts of qualitative research, and tools that can search and synthesize such data can dramatically enhance productivity and outcomes. It’s time for qualitative research to be given its due. Enter Marvin. Software not only gives validity and legitimacy to qualitative research, it makes it more useful. Marvin uses AI to add context to the conversation and to help with analysis. The tool is free for individuals and teams of two researchers. Prayag is excited about the use of open AI and ChatGBT. He’s not worried about these tools replacing researchers, but they do give researchers another data point, that is, what AI can glean from the data. AI can help us find patterns that we didn’t see before or might give an interpretation of the data or ask a question that hadn’t been previously considered. With tools like Marvin, it’s an exciting time to be in research. What you’ll learn from this episode • How software brings legitimacy to processes and data • About Marvin, a tool that “automates the tedious parts of qualitative research” • How AI can augment research • What to expect from Prayag’s upcoming talk with Rida Qadri at Advancing Research – “HCI 2.0: Humanity Deserves the Attention that UX Research has to Offer” – which will include implementing technologies in a socially responsible way Quick Reference Guide [00:00] Introduction of Prayag [01:07] Upcoming talk at Advancing Research March 27-29, 2023 [01:29] Prayag gives a history of his entrepreneurial experience [05:15] Prayag explains why he felt driven to provide a centralized place for data [08:53] Does having software to support qualitative research contribute to its perceived legitimacy? [11:00] On the nature of qualitative research being highly variable and semi-structured and what that means when it comes to writing software [16:12] Break: Rosenfeld Media Communities [18:16] Prayag describes the Marvin tool, available for free for individual researchers and teams of two [0:19:52] The role of AI in research software [0:25:04] On AI’s ability to synthesize data across various sectors of an organization [0:29:08] More details Prayag’s upcoming talk with Rida Qadri at Advancing Research in March [0:32:33] Prayag’s gift to the audience Resources and links from today’s episode: • HeyMarvin.com • Advancing Research 2023: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/advancing-research-2023/ • A Tale of Two Cultures: Qualitative and Quantitative Research in Social Sciences by Gary Goertz and James Mahoney: https://www.amazon.com/Tale-Two-Cultures-Qualitative-Quantitative/dp/0691149712 • Session details for “HCI 2.0: Humanity Deserves the Attention that UX Research has to Offer”:https://rosenfeldmedia.com/advancing-research-2023/sessions/hci-2-0-humanity-deserves-the-attention-that-ux-research-has-to-offer/

Sheryl is the author of the soon-to-be-released Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/systems-thinking-for-designers/ With a background in journalism and political science, and having worked at or with Adaptive Path, Substantial, Frog, Ikea, Microsoft, and the Gates Foundation, Sheryl has an interest in the big picture of systems thinking and how it applies to designers. Working on projects of enormous scale that could directly or indirectly affect thousands or millions of people can put researchers and designers in a state of paralysis as they realize the potential consequences of their work. Systems thinking can help move us out of that state of paralysis and into one of thought, collaboration, and action. Sheryl explains how systems thinking fills the gaps that design thinking alone can leave behind. • Expand your scope from the user to anyone who could be affected by the product. • Don’t just ask how the product will be used. Asked why the product is needed at all. • Expand your thinking. Think broadly about who the stakeholders are and the various contexts that could be impacted by your design. • Imagine different solutions that you might not be able to execute, solutions that might require a policy change or a different business model. An approach like the above will feel slower – at least initially. If you have impatient supervisors and engineers, gain alignment with them by getting them involved in the process. • Help them understand the status quo and envision the future. • Have them go through the exercise of creating visual maps with you. What you’ll learn from this episode: • The relationship between design and systems thinking • How design thinking falls short • How systems thinking fills in the gaps by expanding your thinking and looking outside your scope of expertise • Why systems thinking feels slower but is more collaborative and more efficient in the long run • How to gain alignment with your decision-makers Quick Reference Guide [00:00] Introduction [01:44] Ways to overcome decision paralysis [04:55] Navigating the complexities of the world through systems thinking [06:45] The problem with formalized systems thinking [08:24] Design thinking vs. systems thinking [13:22] The kinds of interventions that drive successful innovation [15:42] How long-term thinking helps overcome compliance issues [17:38] The difference between Cloud Space and Clock Space [22:10] How designers can tell their superiors to slow down [25:22] An easy way to gain alignment with your decision-makers [30:38] Sheryl’s gift to the audience [32:05] Parting thoughts Resources and links from today’s episode: • The Book of Delights by Ross Gay: https://www.amazon.com/Book-Delights-Essays-Small-Overlook/dp/152934977X/ • Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers by Sheryl Cababa: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/systems-thinking-for-designers/

Authors Maria Giudice & Christopher Ireland join Lou to discuss their new book, Changemakers: How Leaders Can Design Change in an Insanely Complex World, which comes out on January 17. Get a taste of what they cover in the book, from systems thinking to navigating change, and how to look broadly at patterns to understand the context in which you are establishing change. The authors explain the wide range of industries they drew from in their research and interviews, as well as the highly emotional aspect of changemaking in society today. Bonus: they share some tools you can use to become a changemaker. Maria recommends: The Knowledge Project podcast - interviews with an eclectic range of people. Host Shane Parrish is one of the best interviewers Maria has ever heard! https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/ Christopher recommends: Non-profit Interact Project, which provides free design education to kids in underserved communities. https://www.inneractproject.org/ Get the book: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/changemakers/

Lou has Rich Mironov, CEO of Mironov Consulting, as his guest. Rich runs a blog and has been writing for over 20 years about business and the psychology that goes into product management. Together, they discuss ways that Product Management and UX can work more fluidly together. They dive into how you can bring your team together so everyone is working on the same page. Rich brings some nuggets of advice he has collected over his many years in the industry and touches on the talk he will be giving at Rosenfeld Media’s Design in Product Conference. https://rosenfeldmedia.com/events/futures/

Lou sits down with Catt Small, Director of Product Design at All Turtles, who will be speaking at the Design in Product Conference on December 6, 2022. They discuss how designers and product managers can learn each other’s lingo and build relationships that will make both their jobs easier. Together, they sort through different workplace scenarios that new and more seasoned designers can encounter and Catt dispenses wisdom she has picked up throughout her career. Register to attend the conference: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/events/futures/design-in-product/register/ Catt is a product design leader, game maker, and front-end web developer. She is currently the Director of Product Design at All Turtles, a globally distributed product studio solving meaningful problems. Catt has done design work for companies of all sizes including Asana, Etsy, SoundCloud, and Nasdaq. She started coding around the age of 10 and designing at the age of 15. She graduated from SVA with a BFA in Graphic Design in 2011 and later received an MS in Integrated Digital Media from NYU in 2016. Catt also makes awkward video games, writes about professional development, and draws artwork of all kinds. You can follow her @cattsmall on Twitter and view her work at www.cattsmall.com.