What is UX? - podcast cover

What is UX?

The show dedicated to inspiring, educating, and motivating UX designers both new and seasoned. Guests share their UX journey, career, and industry experience.

Episodes

S6E10 An interview with Natalia Vargas, Director of Product Design for Cariloop

Natalia is a design leader from La Paz, Bolivia and now works in Dallas, Texas as Director of Product Design for Cariloop, a caregiver support company focused on relieving the stress and anxiety felt by all caregivers. After interning at advertising agencies she fell in love with the interaction design portions of campaigns and quickly transitioned into the world of user experience. She’s had the great fortune of working with some exciting brands, most notably Verizon, 7-Eleven, Animal Supply Co...

Oct 26, 202225 minSeason 6Ep. 10

S6E9 How to find job opportunities with Meesh Lin, Product Designer at Okta

Meesh Lin began designing and launching websites at age eight by learning from her self-taught web designer mother. She's had an unconventional path to design—having freelanced, contracted, and designed-in house for start-ups and public companies over the last 6+ years. Today, Meesh is designing Okta's first consumer product. Inspired by her design journey, she discovered a deep passion for mentorship and helping aspiring designers and technologists break into tech. Also, having worked...

Sep 29, 202248 minSeason 6Ep. 9

S6E8 AI, and what it means for the future of design with Peter Szalontay

Peter Szalontay is the DataGoat/CEO at DataMilk, it is a team of data science and UX experts on a mission to empower eCommerce brands to build AI-powered UX on the level of Big Tech. DataMilk’s Smart UX suite enables fast, fluid, and predictive digital experiences that boost user engagement and gross profit. In this episode, we talked about: How Artificial Intelligence will impact UX Design What is AI software called “DALL-E” Peter’s career at Google Peter on creating businesses out of AI applic...

Sep 07, 202242 minSeason 6Ep. 8

S6E7 An interview with Alicia Warren, Product Design Director for IT Products at Rippling

Alicia is a Product Design Director for IT Products at Rippling - the platform that frees smart people to work on hard problems! She has been a designer across industries, including higher education, academia, insurance, pharmacy, e-commerce, and technology, and is an Adjunct Instructor at Columbia College, where she focuses on how to prepare for moving from college to what your life as a designer will be like. She co-organizes the Ladies that UX Chicago meetup, where she brings conversations li...

Aug 24, 202235 minSeason 6Ep. 7

S6E6 An Interview with Erick Arias, Sr. Product Designer at Meta (formerly known as Facebook, Inc.)

Erick Arias is an Experienced Product Designer with a demonstrated history of transforming the way enterprises build software. He is currently the Sr. Product Designer at Meta (formerly known as Facebook, Inc.) In this episode, we talked about: Erick’s advice and tips with portfolio reviews How did Erick get into design Where did Erick grow up and the story of his upbringing Erick’s first job as a designer Erick’s mentorship at ADPlist Links: erickarias.com https://adplist.org/mentors/erick-aria...

Aug 03, 202233 minSeason 6Ep. 6

S6E5 An interview with Nima H. K., Design Director at First Republic

Nima H. K. graduated from York/Sheridan Program in Design, and is a passionate storyteller obsessed with user experience and telling the right story at the right time. Currently a design director in San Francisco, and just recently designed and built a SaaS product from scratch. He has 16+ years of experience working as a freelancer, at design agencies, and startups. He is happy to share his findings throughout this journey to inspire other designers. In this episode, we talked about: Building t...

Jul 14, 202242 minSeason 6Ep. 5

S6E4 An interview with Glen Lipka, Product Design Leader

Glen Lipka is a product leader who has created innovative products for B2B companies since 1995. Previously, he was the first employee at Marketo, best in class marketing automation software acquired by Adobe and helped guide the company through IPO up to 1000 employees in 9 years. He holds several patents in design innovations. In this episode, we talked about: What is the definition of design for Glen? How does Glen think about design? Glen on being the first employee at Marketo His job and le...

Jul 07, 202247 minSeason 6Ep. 4

S6E3 An interview with Ari Krzyzek, Co-founder and chief creative officer of Chykalophia

Ari Krzyzek is the Co-founder and chief creative officer of Chykalophia (read: see-ka-lo-fia), she helps Femtech DTC and women-led companies craft a brand that delights their customers beyond a pretty design, delivers no-brainer user experience, and gets them the clarity they need to for their business to thrive online. She has over 10 years of branding and design experience, a certified brand strategist, and UX expert. She has transformed businesses' visions into a tangible form that helps...

Jun 15, 202229 minSeason 6Ep. 3

S6E2 An interview with Erik Kennedy, Designer & CEO at Learn UI Design

Erik Kennedy is the creator of Learn UI Design and Learn UX Design. He’s also a freelance UX/UI designer based in Seattle, WA. He has also spoken in the US and abroad at businesses, meetups, and universities (like UC Berkeley, Yale, and UW). His design writing has been read by over a million people. In this episode, we talked about: How Erik got into teaching design Erik’s design tips Erik enumerates and explains 7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI Erik’s UI and UX courses for students Erik talks a...

Jun 08, 202233 minSeason 6Ep. 2

S6E1 An interview with Jeany Ngo, Co-Founder at Kairos

Jeany Ngo is the co-founder at Kairos, which provides the tools for anyone to create, publish and sell NFTs without touching a single line of code. She blends her love of visual storytelling with thoughtful understanding of user behavior. 10+ years in product, UX/UI, and visual design comes from working at Brex, Airbnb, LinkedIn and consulting for design agencies and startups. Clients include Figma, Ueno, TM, Crunchyroll, Tempo Fitness, Handshake, Safari Riot, Yembo Inc, GoInsurance, Eleven Inc,...

Apr 27, 202233 minSeason 6Ep. 1

S5E10 An Interview with Marissa Louie, Sr. Director of Design at Pandora and SiriusXM

Marissa Louie is the Director of UX Design at SiriusXM Pandora, she leads a design organization that thoughtfully creates experiences for 100m+ users. She also serves as the Chairwoman of Animoodles, and runs Designers Club and Designers Guild. Previously, she was a design leader at Apple, Expedia, Ness, and Yahoo. It brings her joy to design delightful products, drive innovative visions with billion dollar results, and help others achieve their full creative potential. In this episode, we talke...

Apr 20, 202242 minSeason 5Ep. 10

S5E9 An Interview with Pawel Bak, Lead Product Designer, Manager at AbbVie

Pawel Bak is a strategic and passionate product/service designer with 12+ years of experience designing for mobile, wearables and IoT devices. Designs and helps develop high-performing design solutions and engaging customer experiences which drive business goals and user satisfaction for well-known brands. An innovative and hard-working leader who is both strong on ideation and implementation, as well as on enabling global agile teams to succeed. Mentors designers and manages established or grow...

Apr 13, 202229 minSeason 5Ep. 9

S5E8 An Interview with Sarah Higgins, Experience Designer at Patagonia

Sarah is currently the Experience Designer at Patagonia. She also worked with Google, Pinterest and Nike, leading strategy and UX in a highly collaborative work environment. Mentored junior staff. Participated in the hiring process, project casting and scoping. She makes experiences by orchestrating cross-disciplinary teams of designers, writers, developers and content creators. Her passion and curiosity about people and how we interact with the world around us drive her to continuously explore ...

Mar 30, 202239 minSeason 5Ep. 8

S5E7 An Interview with Katie Swindler, Innovation Design Strategist at AllState, author

Katie Swindler is a human-centered design strategist with 15 years of experience. Originally educated as a theatre director, her creative approach combines storytelling and technology, emotion and utility to enable brands to connect deeply with consumers and fulfill real human needs. Author of the book Life & Death Design, published by Rosenfeld Media in January 2022, which looks at what life-saving technology can teach us about designing for the human stress response. She’s an experienced p...

Mar 16, 202234 minSeason 5Ep. 7

S5E6 An Interview with Nicole Torgersen, Vice President of Design at Dialpad

Nicole Torgersen is Vice President of Design at Dialpad. She’s been working in digital design since the late '90s working with a range of industries including cloud collab and storage at Dropbox, retail at Gap, and recruiting at Monster Worldwide. A Design craftsperson by trade, Nicole has been a leader most of her career, building teams by way of leveraging empathy and vulnerability in the balance to find business impact while mentoring individuals. In this episode, we talked about: Nicole...

Mar 09, 202243 minSeason 5Ep. 6

S5E5 An Interview with Ryan Tauss, Ex-Associate Director of Product Design at Tide Cleaners

Ryan Tauss is the leading product design for Tide Cleaners. The past almost 4 years, along with a talented crew have greenfield an entire suite of applications that help run operations, customer service, and improve the guest experience making laundry as convenient as just using your thumb. Before that, he worked at America's largest church, Life.Church. It was at this time in his career he made a switch from graphic design to product design. He went from art directing and brand creation to...

Feb 23, 202237 minSeason 5Ep. 5

S5E4 How Google Designs for the Next Billion Users with Sumier Phalake

Sumier Phalake is Head of Design, Next Billion Users at Google, which focuses on products that bring connectivity to users in emerging markets. He has over 15 years of experience across both consumer and enterprise products. Episode highlights: What is “Next Billion Users” (Google) and how it benefits people? Files by Google - file management that helps mobile freeing up space Files by Google success and its million users around the world Sumier cited more of their products Sumier on working on ...

Feb 16, 202240 minSeason 5Ep. 4

S5E3 An Interview with Tessa Rodes, Senior Design Manager at IBM

Tessa Rodes joined the very first cohort of IBM Design Bootcamp in 2013, and since then has seen the design organization and company grow and evolve into a truly design-led system. She has reviewed 100s of portfolio applications in the 8.5 years of IBM Design, and has strong opinions about both what makes a great portfolio and what NOT to bother with. She launched the initial version of the product IBM Cloud and has worked to ensure quality, consistency and differentiating features ever since. I...

Feb 09, 202238 minSeason 5Ep. 3

S5E2 An Interview with Ryan Hudson-Peralta, Staff Product Designer at RocketMortgage

Ryan has spoken all over the world at schools, and organizations sharing his story and inspiring others to live their dreams. Ryan is a father, husband, mentor, motivational speaker, and designer. His current role, leading product design at Rocket Homes. He is an experienced User Interface Designer with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry. Skilled in App Design, User Experience (UX), E-commerce, and Leadership. In this episode, we talked about: Motivational story...

Feb 02, 202236 minSeason 5Ep. 2

S5E1 An Interview with Jared Spool

Jared Spool is the founding principal of User Interface Engineering (UIE), a research, training, and consulting firm that specializes in website and product usability, He is also the Maker of Awesomeness at @CenterCentre/@UIE. Helping designers everywhere help their organizations deliver well-designed products and services. In this episode, we talked about: How did Jared started his business Center Centre-UIE More about running a successful 30 year old company Jared’s early design research work ...

Jan 26, 202247 minSeason 5Ep. 1

S4E10 An Interview with Michaela Mucha, Creative Advertising Manager at The Walt Disney Studios

Michaela Mucha is an award-winning designer, art director, & matcha-drinker currently making fun things (virtually!) at The Walt Disney Studios. Michaela is a first generation Mexican–Filipina–American with over a decade of experience in graphic design. She is a design nerd at heart, and is currently at The Walt Disney Studios where she delivers best-in-class advertising campaigns for theatrical record-breaking box office hits and Disney+ streaming movies and series from Pixar, Disney, and 2...

Jan 19, 202241 minSeason 4Ep. 10

S4E9 An Interview with John Yesko, Senior Director, Head of User Experience & Service Design At Walgreens

John Yesko is a veteran experience design, creative, and digital business leader; now Head of User Experience and Service Design at Walgreens. Responsible for the digital experience on Walgreens websites, consumer mobile apps, and in-store retail interfaces - as well as team member-facing digital. He also leads the Omni-Channel Service Design practice, with the mission of improving customer and employee experience across their ~9500 stores. John's specialties include Information architectur...

Jan 12, 202246 minSeason 4Ep. 9

S4E8 An Interview with Jesse Gaskin, HCD and Patient Experience Lead, Kaiser Permanente Northern California

Jesse Gaskin serves as a Co-Program Director for the Design Leaders Council of The Conference Board. In addition to his work with The Conference Board, Jesse is a patient experience and human-centered design lead at Kaiser Permanente who specializes in using human-centered design to develop and launch new care experiences. His hybrid background in design thinking and business enables him to develop products and services that solve real customer needs while balancing organizational capabilities. ...

Dec 23, 202144 minSeason 4Ep. 8

S4E7 An Interview with Jane Portman, Cofounder of UserList and Host of UIBreakfast podcast

Jane Portman is a UI/UX consultant specializing in web application design, founder of UI Breakfast and Userlist. At Userlist, Jane's goal is to provide flawless onboarding and engagement for SaaS companies through a simple customer messaging platform. Jane has also been running UI Breakfast Podcast since 2014. In this episode, we talked about: How did Jane get into design? Software design and Saas Products Life as UI/UX consultant Productized Consulting Jane’s workflow and process in writin...

Dec 16, 202153 minSeason 4Ep. 7

S4E6 Interview with Ana Lara, Lead UX Designer at Cisco, Sr UX Manager at T-Mobile

Ana Lara is an award-winning app product and strategic designer with more than ten years of experience. She has worked with different clients such as Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Hilton. She was one of the earliest UX team members at T-Mobile, where she led and transformed one of their most important apps into an award-winning mobile experience. Later she transitioned to lead a team of strategists building omnichannel end-to-end customer journeys, seeking user-centric solutions to their pain points...

Dec 08, 202141 minSeason 4Ep. 6

S4E5 Interview with Jesse Showalter, Full-Stack Designer and Content Creator

Jesse Showalter is a Fullstack Designer, Mentor, & Content Creator on a mission to help every creative make an impact on the world. Jesse has a Youtube Channel with over 200k+ subscribers and counting! The channel shares Digital Design & Web Development videos each week focusing on tools, techniques, projects, and more to help creative people make amazing things. If you're an aspiring Web Designer, UI Designer, or Front-End Developer who is interested in creating awesome things in p...

Dec 01, 202153 minSeason 4Ep. 5

S4E4 Interview with Mike Heitzke, Lead Product Designer, CarMax Asurion on Management, Design Ops, Mental Health

Mike Heitzke is a perpetual hobbyist. Competitive powerlifter, three-pedal car enthusiast, tinkerer and watch collector. He served within the logistics space at CarMax as a Lead Product Designer. In this episode, we talked about: MIke’s role at CarMax Design Operations and management Serving internal partners CarMax Experience in managing designers The first failure in leadership Mental Health Life as a competitive powerlifter First design job from Craigslist Links and Resources: https://www.des...

Nov 24, 202153 minSeason 4Ep. 4

S4E3 An Interview with Nico Li, Senior User Experience Design Lead, Innovation and Design at Zebra Technologies

Nico Li is a UX / Product Designer who has been around for a while. Currently, he is residing with the Zebra Technologies Innovation and Design team and spending quite some time incubating new digital solutions. In this episode, we talked about: Nico Li’s role in Zebra Technologies What is Zebra Technologies and how it serves people Hardware and software solutions Zebra Technologies’ stage gating process Company’s general approach Alignment and design evangelism How Nico got into design And MUCH...

Nov 17, 202153 minSeason 4Ep. 3

S4E2 An Interview with Morten Winther, Sr Staff UX Designer at Volkswagen Group of America Innovation and Engineering Center

Morten Winther is a lead UX designer originally from Denmark but now in the Bay Area. He approaches design strategically and strives to ensure the future doesn't turn into a Sci-Fi dystopia. Morten's worked as a UX consultant and collaborated with organizations like Amazon, Absolut Vodka, and the Danish government, and he's currently shaping the future of mobility at Volkswagen Group Innovation. In this episode, we talked about: Things to consider to become a sustainable lead desi...

Nov 10, 202143 minSeason 4Ep. 2

S4E1 Interview with Jamie Dihiansan, Lead Designer at Basecamp

Jamie Dihiansan is currently a Lead Designer at Basecamp primarily focused on the Android and iOS mobile apps for Basecamp (Project Management software) and HEY (Personal and Company Email service). He's been at Basecamp for over 13 years. He has 20+ years experience designing for the Web, including 7 years at Crate and Barrel building up their Internet Graphics department--designing and producing solutions for crateandbarrel.com and cb2.com. Prior to his work at Crate and Barrel he worked ...

Oct 27, 20211 hr 14 minSeason 4Ep. 1