A business can only grow as much as its people. That is why it is important to build teams with the knowledge that each of them is a key member who will eventually become a senior as you grow. In this episode, Leigh Allen-Arredondo interviews Anjali Deswandikar, the Design Director at Terralogic, Inc. and Design Team Lead at Lollypop Design, about building design teams that scale. Anjali talks about the process it took to build her teams across the globe, seeing as they grew from a handful to over 250. She takes us through the structures in place as well as how she ensures that teams are both values-driven and function with high performance. As design leaders, you don't have to bear all the weight alone. You have your team with you who can help, so build them well through this conversation.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Accessibility needs to be the gold standard for everything. If you have the power to make things more accessible and inclusive, strive for that. You are actually leaving money on the table if you don't design with accessibility in mind. There are billions of persons with disabilities, and companies need to consult them. If you're a small company, then it's okay to start small. Start with what you can control and change first. Join Leigh Allen-Arredondo as she talks to product designer Chimmy Kalu about the importance of designing with accessibility. Chimmy is the Chief Design Officer of Lovable Studio. She also does workshops and talks about product design. Learn Chimmy's process when designing something that's accessible. Discover how you can spread accessibility. If everyone does a little bit, then everyone collectively becomes more accessible.Related: Listen to UX Cake Episode #25 with Liz Jackson, "Changing the Design Narrative"LINKSChimmy's WebsiteFollow Chimmy on TwitterFollow Chimmy on LinkedInChimmy's Design Courses & Workshops:Sketch EssentialsHow to design anythingAdvanced Figma********If you enjoy this podcast, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. rate & review us on Apple Podcast or your favorite podcast playerConnect with UX Cake!UX Cake Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked In | YouTubeSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Great digital products don't just happen. They're the result of a strong designer-developer relationship. That is because the two groups bring different but complementary skill sets. By understanding and respecting each other's strengths, the designer and developer can work together to create user-friendly and technically sound products. In this episode, Abhishek Nayak talks about how their company, Appsmith, addresses some of the common issues in the designer-developer relationship and how they have set up both sides for success. Abhishek is the CEO and Co-founder of Appsmith, an open-source low-code tool that helps developers build dashboards and admin panels very quickly.Abhishek also shared with us Appsmith's design system in a bonus video, and showed us how the designers and developers collaborate on files, and get feedback on work-in-progress from customer in real time: View video on our Youtube channelLinksAppsmithUX Cake – YouTubeAbhishek Nayak – Twitterhttps://www.Linkedin.com/in/AbhishekNayak/https://GitHub.com/AppsmithOrg/AppsmithIf you enjoy this podcast, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. rate & review us on Apple Podcast or iTunes on desktop!Connect with UX Cake!UX Cake Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked In | Email - we love feedback!Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Level up with UX StrategyIn this episode of UX Cake Podcast, we discuss how you can create a UX strategy for better outcomes for your users, and the products or services you help create.There are many different perceptions about what UX Strategy actually is. My guest Jaime Levy - who wrote the book "UX Strategy" - defines as the intersection between business strategy and UX design, with a key component being early and continuous validation of the value proposition with customers. It’s a high-level plan of how your product or feature is going to achieve the business goals.Jaime Levy is a UX/product strategist, author, and public speaker based in Los Angeles and Berlin. Her passion is to help business leaders and internal teams transform their product visions into innovative digital solutions that customers want. Jaime also offers public/private workshops, and online masterclasses, and speaks at design and innovation conferences worldwide. Her best-selling O’Reilly Media book is called UX Strategy: Product Strategy Techniques for Devising Innovative Digital Solutions. The book presents a solid framework for the practice, which lies at the intersection of UX design and business strategy.ResourcesJamie LevyWebsiteLinked In MediumTwitterUX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want********If you enjoy this podcast, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. rate & review us on Apple Podcast or iTunes on desktop!Connect with UX Cake! leigharredondo.com | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked InSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Explore the benefits and challenges of scaling user research through democratization with Roberta Dombraski. Learn about empowering research through systems and infrastructure, democratizing UX research, and evolving UX research practices. Discover valuable resources and tools for UX research.

In this episode of the UX Cake podcast, we’re bringing you lots of great information about UX writing as a specialty within UX. In this special Ask Me Anything format we cover some of the most useful soft skills for a career in UX writing, hard skills that are transferable from other industries, ideas on how to upskill your UX writing, finding a mentor, and career trajectories for UX writers.My guest is Laura Costantino (they/them), a senior UX writer at Google. For the past 10 years, Laura has worked at the intersection of editorial marketing and strategy. They fully transitioned into UX content about three years ago and now, as someone who went through a career change, Laura is dedicated to helping other people of all backgrounds transition into UX while also being committed to developing content design and strategy as pivotal parts of the UX discipline.ResourcesStrategic Writing for UX, Torrey Podmajersky Content Strategy for the Web, Kristina Halvorson Content Strategy Toolkit, Meghan Casey Working in Content Content + UX slack Mentoring platformsADP List UX Coffee Hours Design Buddies Hexagon Mentorship program Connect with Laura CostantinoLinkedinWebsiteTwitter********If you enjoy this podcast, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. rate & review us on Apple Podcast or iTunes on desktop!Connect with UX Cake! leigharredondo.com | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked InSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is all about creating meaning from data, and making it easy for your audience to understand by making it visual. We can apply the same principles we use to design dashboards to presentations - whether you’re communicating design concepts (and the data-driven decisions behind your design) or user research findings. I had such a great time talking with my guest Thomas Watkins about how to show meaning using data, I know the term ‘data visualization’ sounds a little overwhelming to some people in UX, if you aren’t designing dashboards. But it doesn’t need to be. I think we did a pretty good job of making data visualization accessible for any level of data interest in the episode.Everyone in UX should be using data - whether you’re in design or research or PM or developer or marketing - and using data in a visual way to communicate important information to the person reading it. If you create presentations, for your design or for your research, if you have any opportunity to use data to explain your design or research recommendations… this episode has great information for you. Whether you are data-curious or data-shy or you lean in the data geek direction like me. I learned some great guidelines about making data visual in more effective ways, and I’ll bet you will too, even if your eyes glaze over at terms like “magnitude comparison” or “scatter plot.” I love how Thomas talks about explaining the context of the numbers, and not just ‘decorating’ numbers with meaningless donut graphs, one of my pet peeves!Thomas Watkins is the founder of 3 Leaf consulting, a design collective that combines psychology and design principles to create usable products and services. Thomas is a thought leader, speaker and industry practitioner in Houston TX. The scope of his work has included interface design for mobile, SaaS system architecture, usability research, and data visualization.LINKShttps://www.3leaf.consulting/https://www.instagram.com/3leafmethodhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/watkinsthomas/Show Link - Graph Selection Matrixhttps://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/misc/Graph_Selection_Matrix.pdfIf you enjoy this podcast, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter or on Linked In - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. rate & review us on Apple Podcast or iTunes on desktop!Listen Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Increasing our influence also increases the impact our work can have. This is especially important in user experience design and research… when not everyone we work with may have the same user obsession as we do, so it sometimes takes extra effort to see the impact we want. Often the UX folks are not the ultimate authority in the room, or on a project. And then add to that the fact that others’ bias can also undermine your authority - biasis about gender, race, age, disability… I had a chance to talk about all of this with 3 other UX experts, Hana Nagel, Real Canty, and Ashby Hayes. We covered a lot of ground. And, because we recorded in front of a live audience, you’ll also get a chance to hear the very powerful Q & A session which is the last half of this longer-than usual episode. This episode was originally published in 2019, and it remains one of UX Cake’s top-downloaded episodes, episode 31. There is also an unedited video of the panel on our UX Cake YouTube channel.Hana Nagel is UX Manager @ Deloitte Digital, Real Canty is Sr User researcher @ Google, Ashby Hayes is SVP of product & design at Potato, a digital product agency. ********If you enjoy this podcast, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. rate & review us on Apple Podcast or iTunes on desktop!Listen Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake! leigharredondo.com | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked InSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

No doubt you're practicing challenging assumptions in your user-centered work already -- identifying what you think you know (or assume) about users' beliefs and actions, and finding out if those assumptions are true, or what else is true. What if you take that same approach towards the people you work with, and in your own career? The result can be surprising, and even transformational.********If you enjoy this podcast, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. rate & review us on Apple Podcast or iTunes on desktop!Listen Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake! leigharredondo.com | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked InSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you found interest in User Research, but are unsure if a career change is possible?Today I'm talking to Eniola Abioye, a Sr. User Researcher at Meta, specifically about transitioning into user-focused or design research from research-related backgrounds in other disciplines. Eniola herself came from biotechnology before moving into the design research space.Eniola has a passion for helping others figure out how to utilize their existing experience, and to learn through doing, getting relevant experience in the real world to create a fulfilling career in UX without necessarily going back to school.Eniola Abioye currently conducts impactful user research with cross-functional teams at Meta. She began her people research career at Branding Science, an agency in the biotechnology space, and later moved on to advance Design Thinking at Kaiser Permanente. She then designed a research strategy and led research across a digital platform at Silicon Valley Bank. Outside of her full-time position, Eniola provides career coaching to other UX Researchers and leads UX projects with social justice organizations in her community. She’s excited to share how UX Researchers are uniquely positioned to drive inclusive and accessible innovation in tech.Connect with Eniola AbioyeLinkedinWebsite Instagram********If you enjoy this podcast, there are some really simple ways you can help us: follow us on twitter - like and reshare our postssubscribe to the newsletter for updates and bonus contentshare this episode, or any of our episodes, with a friend. rate & review us on Apple Podcast or iTunes on desktop!Listen Apple | Spotify | Google | WebsiteConnect with UX Cake! leigharredondo.com | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Linked InSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.