UX & Growth Podcast

Cambria Davies, Product Manager at Ro, discusses launching a product from scratch, the 'jobs-to-be-done' framework, telehealth innovation, user goals, building an MVP, and using data pipelines for product development.

Jason Ogle, host of User Defenders, discusses the intricacies of being a podcast host with Austin. They talk about the power of podcasting and its unexpected benefits, audience acquisition and retention strategies, the effectiveness of direct sponsorships, building an audience, and the importance of listener promotion and building trust.

What are the key pieces of a great portfolio? What are the best tools for building and launching one? And what are the pitfalls to avoid? In this episode, Martijn van den Broeck (Designer at Google) joins me to talk about the art and science of design portfolios. For years, Martijn has closely studied portfolios, developing expertise in everything from the ideal number of case studies to the right way to handle an NDA and beyond. He shares a comprehensive approach to building, launching, and leveraging a portfolio. "I'm surprised by how few people actually have read their NDA and tried to understand it. One thing I did was write an article about what I learned while interning at IDEO. So I couldn't go into the specifics of projects, but I could still say, 'Hey, I went to IDEO and I learned all these amazing things' that weren't NDA protected." — Martijn at 22:56 Martijn's portfolio guide: https://medium.com/portfolio-principles Martijn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MartijnvdBroeck Martijn's portfolio: https://martijnvandenbroeck.com/ Austin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ustinknight More about me and the show: https://austinknight.com/

What do designers do after they've achieved their career goals? Why aren't designers typically founders, and why is creative burnout so common? In this episode, I sit down with Joel Beukelman (Designer at Google) for a raw and honest conversation about career growth, goal attainment, and the inevitable existential crisis that follows. We touch on the dangers of being emotionally attached to work, the prevalence of ego and homogeneity in design, and the confusing world of design titles and roles (and how they impact us). Plus, Joel shares his framework for evaluating one's career and its impact on life. "I had to look outside of design in my career and be like, 'There has to be something more than this, because this obviously isn't fulfilling or making me feel purposeful'. In the end, I had a meeting with Monica, my manager, and she was like, 'What do you want next?' and I was like, 'I want to work less. I want to be here less. Can we do that?' It was a weird conversation to have with my boss, but that was really it. I didn't want to invest my time in my career." — Joel at 9:55 Please note that this was recorded well before the COVID-19 pandemic, in October of 2019. Check out the video that Joel made about this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtUeQvp9b8M Try his framework for yourself: https://www.bkl.mn/designer-at-scale Joel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_bklmn Joel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joelbeukelman Joel on Instagram: http://instagram.com/bklmn Austin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ustinknight More about me and the show: https://austinknight.com/

What are the basic steps to take when starting a podcast? And how do you grow it? In this episode, Matt, Geoff and I recap what we've done to run the UX & Growth Podcast. We talk format, guests, equipment, hosting, distribution, promotion and more. From the best mics to the most unexpected growth channels, these are the big things we've learned while running our small show. This episode was originally recorded in April of 2017 and we didn't release it. So now, it's being brought to you as a bonus episode. The recording may be a bit dated, but the information isn't. Enjoy! Microphones: ATR-2100 (USB/XLR), AKG P220 (XLR) Software: Audacity, Garageband & Auphonic Self-hosting on Wordpress: https://en.support.wordpress.com/audio/podcasting/ Submitting a podcast to iTunes: https://help.apple.com/itc/podcasts_connect/#/itcc0e1eaa94 Austin on Twitter: Twitter.com/ustinKnight Geoff on Twitter: Twitter.com/dailydaigle Matt on Twitter: Twitter.com/mattrheault

Lee Munroe, Director of Design at OneSignal, discusses the impact of side projects on a designer's career and shares insights on growing a product and team simultaneously. He talks about the challenges of monetizing side projects, finding product-market fit, and the evolution of OneSignal's revenue model. They also dive into the use of notifications for growth and retention, emphasizing the importance of timely and relevant notifications and the ecosystem effect of bad actors.

The UX & Growth Podcast is back, and we’re kicking things off right. In this episode, I sit down with Hannah Lee (Designer at Google) to discuss how she audited Chrome’s entire UI and introduced a new design system in time for its tenth birthday, reducing the application size by megabytes in the process. When rolled out across Chrome’s more than 2 billion users, this represented a material impact on global device memory and data usage. From discovering 98 different shades of grey, to designing for obsolete operating systems, to open sourcing Chrome’s design system, we cover all of the epiphanies, lessons and downright hilarious moments in Hannah’s quest to design at planet scale. Hannah on Twitter: https://twitter.com/san_toki Hannah on Medium: https://medium.com/@san_toki Unboxing Chrome: https://medium.com/@san_toki/unboxing-chrome-f6af7b8161a2 Austin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ustinknight

How do companies like Dropbox, Spotify, Slack, and HubSpot leverage freemium strategies to grow? What are the different approaches to freemium, and when should (or shouldn't) they be used? In this episode, I sit down with Dexter Zhuang (Growth & Monetization Manager at Dropbox) to take a deep dive on freemium growth. From acquiring free users, to converting them to paid customers, to reinvesting that money into acquiring more free users, we cover it all and give you a glimpse at examples where it’s all gone right, and a few where it’s gone terribly wrong. "Spotify has 40 million paid subscribers out of over 100 million monthly active users. The active user to paid subscriber conversion rate is somewhere between 25-40%, which is unheard of. This is an astronomical conversion rate. 80% of all users on Spotify use it multiple times per week. Multiple times per week." — Dexter at 19:30 Dexter on Twitter: Twitter.com/dexteryz Check out Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/ Email us: Hello@UXandGrowth.com Austin on Twitter: Twitter.com/ustinKnight

WebVR is Virtual Reality that runs in the browser, on anything from a smartphone, to a laptop, to an HTC Vive. And it's much easier to build for than you'd think. In this episode, I sit down with Casey Yee (UX Engineer at Mozilla and one of the early pioneers of WebVR) to talk about the future of the web. We cover everything from getting started in WebVR, to unique use cases that we've seen, to ways that forward-thinking businesses are already leveraging it. "We started to feel like we were trying to paint a painting while still designing the paintbrush. It's like you're creating in a medium that's still being created. And this is important because this is our opportunity to define this medium. This is a massive technological revolution that is happening before our eyes, similar to the likeness of the transition from print to digital." — Austin at 42:50 Check out A-Frame: https://aframe.io/ Learn more about WebVR: https://webvr.rocks/ Casey on Twitter: Twitter.com/whoyee Casey's personal site: http://cyee.io/ A-Frame on Twitter: Twitter.com/aframevr Mozilla VR on Twitter: Twitter.com/mozillavr Meet the team behind Mozilla VR: https://mozvr.com/ Email us: Hello@UXandGrowth.com Austin on Twitter: Twitter.com/ustinKnight

Emerging economies are expected to contribute up to 70% of global GDP growth between now and 2025. The opportunities to internationalize have never been better. But how do you select the right market to enter? And once you do, how should your design and growth strategies change? In this episode, I sit down with Daniel Patiño (Co-founder of Digifianz) to take a deep dive on emerging markets. "We know that developing countries are fast becoming the driver of the overwhelming majority of global growth. In fact, emerging economies are expected to grow 2-3 times faster than developed nations like the US." — Austin at 9:50 Watch in 360º VR: https://vr.austinknight.com Check out Digifianz: http://inbound.digifianz.com/en/ Digifianz on Twitter: Twitter.com/digifianz Dan on Twitter: Twitter.com/ThisIsDanPatino Dan on LinkedIn: https://ar.linkedin.com/in/danpatino Email us: Hello@UXandGrowth.com Austin on Twitter: Twitter.com/ustinKnight