NN/g UX Podcast

One might think user research gets easier when there are more people available to do it; but managing research initiatives at scale can be a difficult task in itself. In this episode, Kara Pernice, Senior VP at NN/g shares her experience and insights about managing UX research operations. Kara Pernice's Articles and Videos (NN/g bio)  NN/g courses and articles referenced in this episode: ResearchOps (UX certification course)  ResearchOps (article)  Research Repositories for Tracking UX Research and Growing Your ResearchOps (article)  Design Systems 101 (article) DesignOps (UX certification course)  Research repository tools mentioned: Dovetail Consider.ly Airtable  Other ResearchOps pioneers and communities: Kate Towsey's Work (articles on Medium) Leveling up your Ops and Research — a strategic look at scaling research and Ops (by Brigette Metzler) ResearchOps Community (and Slack channel) ...and if you were curious what research papers launched Kara into her UX career, here are two of them: Nielsen, J. (1990). Big paybacks from 'discount' usability engineering. IEEE Software 7, 3 (May), 107-108. Nielsen, J. (1992). Finding usability problems through heuristic evaluation. Proc. ACM CHI'92 (Monterey, CA, 3-7 May), 373-380.

Advocating for UX work is hard. It's even harder when you're the only UX professional on your team. That said, there is still hope for one-person UX teams, and Garrett Goldfield shares his recommendations on how to make the most out of limited time and resources, and how to lead the charge in shifting corporate culture toward a more human-centered future. Read more about Garrett Goldfield (NN/g bio) Resources & courses cited in this episode: Episode 1. What is UX, anyway? (feat. Dr. Jakob Nielsen, the usability guru) (previous NN/g UX Podcast episode) The One-Person UX Team (UX Certification course) The Human Mind and Usability (UX Certification course)

To celebrate our first podcast milestone, we flipped the script. NN/g UX Specialist Rachel Krause guest-hosts this episode, and interviews host Therese Fessenden about the concept of "delight" in user experience: what it is, why the pursuit of delight can often be a short-sighted and misunderstood endeavor, and how a more holistic approach to interpreting and anticipating user needs can more reliably lead to an experience that delights beyond a single interaction. Read more about the hosts:  Therese Fessenden's Articles & Videos (NN/g bio) Rachel Krause's Articles & Videos (NN/g bio) Free resources cited in this episode: A Theory of User Delight: Why Usability Is the Foundation for Delightful Experiences (free article) Design for Emotion (by Daniel Ruston, UX Lead at Google Design) Principles of Emotional Design (Intuit case study by Garron Engstrom) How Delightful! 4 Principles for Designing Experience-Centric Products (Autodesk MLP case study by Maria Giudice) Research: Perspective-Taking Doesn’t Help You Understand What Others Want (HBR article by Tal Eyal, Mary Steffel, Nicholas Epley) Harvard Psychiatrist Identifies 7 Skills to Help You Get Along With Anybody (Inc. article by Carmine Gallo about Helen Riess' work) Other resources cited in this episode: Emerging Patterns in Interface Design (UX Certification course) Persuasive and Emotional Design (UX Certification course) DesignOps: Scaling UX Design and User Research (UX Certification course) Designing for Emotion by Aarron Walter (book) 

Does having more experience in the UX industry enable you to make better design decisions by intuition? Does user research ever become a waste of time if some research already exists in academic papers? The answer, it seems, is not that simple. In this episode, UX Specialists Alita Joyce and Therese Fessenden discuss why, after all these years doing independent user research, you should still test your interfaces and research with your own customers. Read more: Alita Joyce's Articles & Videos (NN/g bio) Free resources cited in this episode: Viral video (by @tired_actor) "The Square Hole" (TikTok video) The False-Consensus Effect (free article) The “False Consensus Effect”: An Egocentric Bias in Social Perception and Attribution Processes (PDF of full study by Ross, Greene, and House) 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design (free article) How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation (free article)  10 Usability Heuristics Applied to Video Games (free article) Don Norman - Changing Role of the Designer Part 2: Community Based Design (4 min video) Adam Grant - The "I’m Not Biased" Bias (Tweet about NBC Sunday Spotlight feature)  Other resources cited in this episode: The Human Mind and Usability (UX Certification course)  Persuasive and Emotional Design (UX Certification course)  Democratizing Innovation by Eric Von Hippel (book) Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (book)

What does it take to create a great customer experience? As it turns out: a lot more than just a series of great interactions. Kim Salazar, Sr. UX Specialist, shares her expertise on what omnichannel experiences are, why they matter for CX, and how having a mature CX means fundamentally changing how we view and handle UX work. Resources cited in this episode Ep. 1 - What is UX, anyway? (feat. Dr. Jakob Nielsen, the usability guru) (our inaugural podcast episode) Operationalizing CX: Organizational Strategies for Delivering Superior Omnichannel Experiences (142-page report) CX Transformation (full-day course) Journey Mapping to Understand Customer Needs (full-day course) Kim's Articles & Videos (NN/g bio) Other related articles & videos What is Omnichannel UX? (2-min video) User Experience vs. Customer Experience: What’s The Difference? (free article + 4 min video) Good Customer Experience Demands Organizational Fluidity (free article)

"Keep it simple," is one of many great UX mantras... but how exactly does someone "keep it simple" when working with complex applications? In this episode, Page Laubheimer, Senior UX Specialist with NN/g, shares his expertise in information architecture (IA) and complex app design, recommends a few ideas to "lessen digital misery" on business-to-business (B2B) and enterprise applications, and offers advice for when you have to redesign a legacy application that is part of a user's everyday life. Resources cited in this episode: Designing Complex Apps for Specialized Domains (full-day course) Data Visualizations for Dashboards (4-min video) Dashboards: Making Charts and Graphs Easier to Understand (NN/g article) Why I Now Use “Four-Threshold” Flags On Dashboards (Nick Desbarats' article) Tesler's Law (Wikipedia article) Page's NN/g Articles and Videos (bio page)

Aren't all "user-centered" designs ethical by default if we're giving people what they want? Not exactly. Maria Rosala, UX Specialist at NN/g, shares her thoughts about how we can be better researchers and designers by asking critical questions about our research and design decisions, evaluating important tradeoffs, and ensuring we include the right people in our research and design process. Resources Cited in this Episode: User Interviews (UX Certification course) Design Tradeoffs and UX Decision Frameworks (UX Certification course) Ethics in User Research (1-hr online seminar) You Are Not The User: The False-Consensus Effect (free article) TED Talk: How I'm fighting bias in algorithms | Joy Buolamwini (9 min YouTube video) Also related: How Inclusive Design Expands Business Value (1-hr online seminar)

How do you evaluate the impact of UX work? As the world faces another bout of pandemic lockdowns, UX teams are finding themselves in a tough position of justifying their work to business decision-makers. Kate Moran, Senior UX Specialist at NN/g, shares insights from her recently published report on UX Metrics and ROI (return on investment) and offers advice on how to prove your worth. In this episode, we cover: what ROI is and why it matters, avoiding common pitfalls when calculating ROI, and how to stay growth-oriented without harming long-term business strategy.  Resources cited in this episode: UX Metrics and ROI report (297-page report) Measuring UX and ROI (full-day course) Myths of Calculating ROI (free article) Don't Shame Your Users Into Converting (4-min video) Stop Shaming Your Users for Micro Conversions (free article)  Kate's NN/g Articles and Videos (bio page)

"Diamonds are made under pressure," but what does that mean for creativity and productivity? Aurora Harley, Senior UX Specialist, shares some advice on staying creative and productive during times of stress, thoughts on reframing constraints as opportunities, and tips for nurturing an environment that fosters innovative thought regardless of distance. Resources Cited in this Episode Effective Ideation Techniques for UX Design (full-day course) Changing Role of the Designer (Don Norman) (5 min video) Ideation Techniques for a One-Person UX Team (2 min video) Remote Ideation - Synchronous or Asynchronous Techniques (4 min video) Troubleshooting Group Ideation: 10 Fixes for More and Better UX Ideas (free article)

What does a typical UX career path look like? Are there even typical career paths in UX? How can you become a UX leader? What should new and seasoned UX professionals keep in mind as they move through their careers? Rachel Krause, a UX Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group, shares her insights from her research on the UX profession, and perspectives from her own journey into the field of user experience. Resources Cited in this Episode: What a UX Career Looks Like Today (free article) User Experience Careers (90-page report) Management vs. Specialization as UX Career Growth (3 min video) The State of UX Job Descriptions (3 min video) Being a UX Leader: Essential Skills for Any UX Practitioner (full-day course)