Surviving UX

What does it feel like to lose everything? What's left over when you walk away from your corporate job and your dream home burns to the ground? Margot Dear faced this unthinkable scenario and has risen from the ashes to rebuild her career, reasses her life, and rediscover the bonds she formed over years of working with UX teammates. Support Margot's GoFundMe to support Altadena, CA: https://gofund.me/175fa8bf  

What's the biggest irony of our jobs? Can maximize your productivity if you also have care tasks? How many times do you read your layoff notice? And does your manager really care when you get laid off? Uday Gajendar returns to the podcast.  Zirp Soda Tshirt Zirp Soda Sticker

Can you take on a chatbot and win? Are you making your users do chores? Are you pumped about automatic renewal laws? Get hyped with us about UX in 2025.

Are you in UX for the right reasons? If you lost your job would you walk away from the UX field  or fight for your passion? Do you have the stamina to apply to over 1,000 jobs? We talk to seasoned UX professional Shawn Kenney who is navigating the UX job market in these insane times.

Do designers have enough supervision? Can you be proactive about your destiny in this job market? And who's a worse train passenger: babies or bachelorettes? User Experience Research Leader Ben Basilan joins the podcast to talk about mastering the research interview and evolving in your career. 

What proved to be most sticky from UX Y'all the TriUXPA conference? What does it take to get the tech obessesed to look up from their phones? Is there anything that can make bad team dynamics better? More tales of UX survival with guest Matt Rogers, Product Design Lead and fellow UX Y'all presenter.

It's the final countdown! Join us for all the conference fun 1 day before, 2 hours before, and 1 hour after our talk at UX Y'all in Raleigh. 

Nearing the finish line! Is our stress a manufactored crisis? Perhaps a Meg-ufactured one? We forge on and share reflections on the final, tired days of prep. 

We continue to collaborate on our conference talk and ponder: After all this time, how could we be learning new things about each other? What makes all this effort worth it? And, this is going to be fun, right? Right?

We continue to prep for UX Y'all and the rewriting and second guessing is in full swing! This week we talk about nervously crafting slides and talk tracks: What's gonna hit? What's gonna land? 

In a few short weeks Jessamyn and Meg will present at UX Y'all. Will we get the presentation done in time? Will our friendship hold out? And what is it like to get ready for such a UX professional extracurricular? 

What would you do to save your most precious notebook? Is the remote-worker promotion penalty real? How many chicken nuggets can your AI order? 

How do you move from mocks to strategy? Does anyone appreciate UX consultants? Courtney Campbell joins Surviving UX to talk about her big switch to UX strategy and why she tells designers to get out of Figma.

What happens when you stay at the same company for over a decade? Do you feel represented by UXPA or Figma's communities? Joshua Ledwell joins me and Meg Cramer to talk about staying put.

What sets you off? Have you ever had an emotional freak out at work? Does it matter if we stay professional or is okay to cry?  

UX research practitioner Troy Effner joins the podcast! What is work like after a dyslexia diagnosis? How might you sell your super powers to the business? And where can you look to find what nourishes your brain?

Join Meg, Jessamyn, and two special guests for the first Surviving UX Draft to determine the best ever conditions for UX design work. Laura Martin returns and Patrick Kovacich joins for draft day 2024. 

Are you a UX saint or sinner? Do dark patterns have a place in design? Should you push back if you're asked to design "dark"?

When's the last time you had the courage to look your stakeholder in the eye and put a design workshop on their calendar? Sami Lee joins us to talk about extra long coffee runs and agenda-less meetings.

Tension? Boredom? Burnout? Are you stuck professionally? It's the perfect time to explore career moves with UX coach Amy Santee.

Have you ever been right at work but had to let someone else believe they were? Did your latest performance review's negative feedback ring true? Is it possible not to get tricked by online shopping UX compliance patterns? 

Dinner with the family or drinks after work? Users' time or engineering time? Candy or pain relievers? Jessamyn and Meg tackle the tough judgement calls that come with UX.

Can coaching and meditation get you through a tough job market? Can you to push past pixel pushing to UX strategy? And are true offsites just a fleeting memory now? Meg and Jessamyn welcome Dvir Adler and Dor Reich to talk about their warmest onboarding memories.

Glad to see the end of 2023? Meg survives a return to work, including cat attacks. Jessamyn survives on vending machine snacks in a race to the bottom of the cheapest eats in the office.

What's it like to work at a big company with your spouse? What's it like to work in a small space, also with your spouse? And what's it like to be hitched to a UX professional? Surviving UX tackles love and marriage with two special guests.  

Do fur babies get more perks at work than children? What's it like to dip back and forth between military service and big tech? Why is Product put in charge of UX teams and not the other way around? Join us and special guest, UX leader Laurie Lynch, as we sort out which self is the right self to bring to work. 

Where can you have the most public of romance/work breakups? What is especially disgusting about cryptocurrency? And how can you archive the toxic work experiences you just want to forget? Join Jessamyn and Meg for their hot investment tips and the trials of tech. 

Can you design away a one-thousand-page manual? Does saying yes to UX mean letting go of other passions? Meg and Jessamyn talk to Bahar Espiritu, creative director of Essence of Hockey.

Are you scared to go to reunions? How great would it be to bring your work bestie along to your next gig? What fun things could you learn if you take a virtual tour of your colleague's home? Senior Product Designer Brianna Koch joins Jessamyn and Meg for a chat. 

Have you ever dreamed of hanging out your consulting shingle? Can you signal that you're open to new jobs without risking your current one? Amber Braden and Jill Christ join the podcast to share how they founded GLOW Insights, a user research consultancy.

How attractive are 4 day work weeks? Can one UX individual actually get more done in less time? When's the last time you used a new product or service where it felt like they really talked to users? 

What are you willing to do to put food on the table? Do you bother applying to jobs where 300 people have already applied? How do you keep swimming without anything to hold on to? We welcome freelance UX designer and researcher Tim Duffield.

Back in the office? Starting over yet again? Climb aboard this UX career train and join Jessamyn and Meg to talk LinkedIn desperation, following dreams, and the glamorous return of commuting. 

Do you miss cubicle walls? What do you do with a piece of hot gossip? Why don't senior designers share their secrets? Meg and Jessamyn chat with designer Jo Carroll. 

Are UX card decks back, or just more divine? Does anyone really want to know about your bad weekend? Do melancholic leaders (wherever they might be hiding) wield power? Meg and Jessamyn ponder the Bittersweet (book by Susan Cain) and try desperately to beat the summer heat. 

Are you awake at night wondering if your design is ready for users? Are designers scared of talking to their own customers? Can you "borrow" research from other teams? Jessamyn welcomes Shilpa Bhat, senior designer in ML/AI at AWS.

Can cars be designed any worse for infants? Does GDPR protect us from getting too many catalogs? Is your workplace menopause-friendly?

Have you been on a project team that released a chatbot but detest them in real life? Can you navigate your job like a roomba while smashing through walls? How do you work through the evening and have dinner with your kids? Meg and Jessamyn consider talk chat crap, dreaming big, and mealtime etiquette. 

Could women's bathrooms be designed any worse? Do theme parks even realize people come in different sizes? Is my brastrap showing on this video call? Jessamyn and Meg doubt anyone would understand their LinkedIn posts, so they don't even bother.

Ever wondered what plumbing is like at theme parks? Does it seem weird when a colleague is working from bed? What do you think you'd differently when next years performance review season rolls around? And will you actually do it? Jessamyn and Meg catch up on surviving as springtime emerges, even though those pesky germs haven't gotten the memo.

Do competitive designers get ahead? What does healthy competition look like? Have you ever thrown anyone under the bus? Meg and Jessamyn talk to Shubha Gargava, senior user experience designer for artificial intelligence and machine learning at AWS.  

What does it feel like to wake up to a layoff notice? Why are recruiters sensitive to their interview count? Should you keep your job hunt on simmer or just wait for the phone to ring? Jessamyn and Meg talk to Adam Starr, relationship-first technologist and people person.

Scared to talk to managers and HR about unexpected life events? What kind of support do employees need during a major medical crisis? And what can you do for a colleague taking leave? Check out our episode on the “Working with Cancer” pledge and navigating life's big and little reasons to press pause. 

Will you miss pushing pixels if you become a UX manager? Is anyone reading your Figma comments? Can you claim the business's success as your own after designing a feature? Jessamyn and Meg chat with Laura Martin, Senior UX Manager at Amazon.

Have you been affected by recent layoffs? How do you share your layoff story in social media? Meg and Jessamyn talk about the broken fantasy of tech careers.

Is it possible to minimize UX drudge work? Can you let go and shake up your process? And just how many of your houseplants should you expect will die? Jessamyn and Meg wade through UXPA (UX Professional Association) conference reviewer feedback and wrap up Surviving UX Season 2!

Anything worse than saying good-bye over zoom? Where do you go at work to talk about parental leave? T-shirt or notebook? Jessamyn and Meg invite guest Krishna Vadrevu, fellow UX Designer, to chat about the best swag, switching jobs in the pandemic, and advice for the non-birth parent. 

Just how many UX internships do you need to apply to, anyway? What will your parents think about your UX career? What type of work will you end up doing at an internship? Jessamyn and Meg talk to Adaeze Ezekwerre, Drexel University HCI student and summer intern at AWS.

Where do you find 1% users? Who are the unsung heroes of the UX world? Are the days of onsite interviews over? Jessamyn and Meg talk to Brian Ashbaugh, UX leader and user research director with 20 years in the biz.  

Do you edit your presentation in front of your audience? Schedule meetings and then forget to attend? Jiggle your mouse while you're away? Meg and Jessamyn weigh in on more terrible work habits from UXers.