Podcast appearances and mentions of Don Norman

Join host Todd Conklin as he recounts a humorous and eye-opening experience at a Houston airport, navigating an empty TSA line designed for a crowd. Dive into the conversation about design choices and their impact on efficiency and effectiveness, guided by insights from Don Norman's work. Explore how our systems often dictate behavior, and why their design matters, especially when they seem absurd. This episode raises important questions about the balance between convenience and efficiency in safety and bureaucratic systems.

From Amphitheaters to Apps: The Evolution of User ExperienceLong before we had screens, scroll wheels, or skeuomorphism, we were already wrestling with what it meant to design for humans.Take the Roman Colosseum, for example.Built nearly two thousand years ago, this wasn't just a feat of architecture—it was a carefully orchestrated user experience. The Romans didn't just think about how to build it. They thought about how people would use it.They designed for easy access, with a ticketing system based on numbered entrances and a layout that could empty 50,000 spectators in under 15 minutes. The acoustics were finely tuned so the roar of the crowd carried across the arena, and shaded awnings (the velarium) helped protect people from the sun. Every detail was intentional.It was, in many ways, a masterclass in UX before UX had a name.UX Has Always Been About PeopleWe like to think of UX as a digital thing. But humans have been designing with users in mind since the first tool was shaped to fit a hand. Egyptian sickles curved to match the arc of an arm. Greek amphitheaters optimized for sightlines and sound. Roman roads were engineered for ease of maintenance—because someone had to clean them, after all.These weren't just technical solutions. They were people-first designs.Even medieval cathedrals were built with experiential thinking. Architects considered the way light would filter through stained glass at different times of day. The experience of awe wasn't accidental.And while we'll skip ahead now (you didn't pick up this book for a lecture on Mesopotamian farming tools), it's worth acknowledging this simple truth:UX isn't new. Only the term is.The Digital ShiftThings changed in the mid-20th century. The rise of aviation and computing forced us to formalize our approach to usability. Mistakes became expensive—or fatal. So, human factors engineering emerged. We studied how people interacted with complex systems and tried to design those systems to be safer and more intuitive.It started in cockpits. Aircraft instrumentation had to be easy to read and understand under pressure. This wasn't about making things pretty. It was about saving lives. That pragmatic approach to human-centred design later shaped everything from microwave interfaces to early computer systems.Fast forward to the 1980s, and computing hit the mainstream.That's when things really took off.At Xerox PARC, researchers introduced the first graphical user interface. Apple took it further with the Macintosh, turning computing from a tool for specialists into something everyone could use. Suddenly, usability wasn't just a nice-to-have. It was a competitive advantage. And in 1993, Don Norman, while working at Apple, coined the term "User Experience."“I invented the term because I thought human interface and usability were too narrow.” — Don NormanThat moment matters. Because what Norman was arguing for was a broader view of design. Not just the screen. Not just the features. But the entire experience—from the first moment someone hears about a product to the support they receive after using it.“User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services, and its products.” — Don Norman and Jakob NielsenIn other words, UX was never meant to be confined to wireframes and user flows. It was meant to be everything.UX Gets StrategicBy the early 2000s, UX had a seat at the table—albeit a wobbly one. Jesse James Garrett released The Elements of User Experience in 2002, which became a cornerstone for the field.Garrett didn't just break UX down into layers—strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and surface—he emphasized that it all starts with strategy. Before we push pixels or run tests, we need to understand user needs and business goals.That idea changed things.We weren't just designing interfaces. We were shaping how people experienced products, services, and even entire brands. UX wasn't just implementation. It was about shaping products from the very beginning, not just making tweaks at the end.And as agile methods took over, UX adapted again. We embraced faster feedback loops, closer collaboration, and more iterative design. We moved from long documentation to quick prototypes. From abstract personas to real user insight.By the 2010s, UX had grown up.Design thinking gained traction. Suddenly, UX was sharing the spotlight with business strategy. Service design entered the conversation. We weren't just designing digital tools—we were solving human problems, often in messy, non-linear ways.UX vs. Everything ElseAs UX matured, we saw these disciplines emerge from within it. Our understanding of UX broadened, leading to specialization in areas like UI design, product design, service design, DesignOps, and even extending into marketing and customer experience.So let's clear things up a bit:UI Design is about what the user sees and interacts with. Think buttons, typography, animations. It's the look and feel.Product Design is broader. It connects user needs with business goals. Product designers care about features, roadmaps, KPIs, and how the product evolves over time.DesignOps and Service Design sit more behind the scenes. They're about scaling design efficiently. They orchestrate people, tools, and workflows to support good outcomes—kind of like stage managers for a show who make sure the lighting, props, and crew all hit their marks. You might never notice them when everything goes well—but without them, the whole production risks falling apart.And UX?UX is front of stage. It's the performance the audience actually experiences. It's the story that unfolds when someone buys your product, uses it, recommends it, or gets frustrated and gives up. Every moment on that journey is part of the user experience, whether it's a sleek onboarding flow, an unreadable error message, or a helpful reply from customer support.UX is the full experience. It's not a department. It's not a phase. It's not a deliverable. It's what happens to your users—whether you intended it or not.Take something as emblematic as buying an Apple product. The UX includes everything from the anticipation built by the marketing, the elegant packaging design, the satisfying moment of lifting the lid, the device that powers on right out of the box, the intuitive setup process, and even the helpful support at the Genius Bar.You might admire the product design. But the experience is everything that surrounds it—something Apple has understood since Don Norman helped shape their approach in the early 1990s.“No product is an island. A product is more than the product. It is a cohesive, integrated set of experiences… Make them all work together seamlessly.” — Don NormanA good UI is important. A strong product strategy is essential. But if the experience feels clunky, frustrating, or inconsistent—none of it matters.UX connects the dots.It asks: How does it feel to use this? Does it make sense? Does it meet a real need?And it reminds us that what we design isn't just a product or a service. It's a human moment.The Reality CheckSo, UX has matured significantly. Most business leaders now understand its importance, at least in theory. You'll rarely hear someone argue against the value of good user experience.But understanding isn't the same as implementation.The reality in many organizations is far from the idealized vision we read about online. UX teams are often understaffed and under-resourced. They're expected to deliver transformative results with minimal support, limited budgets, and impossible timelines.The problem goes deeper than resources. UX has been fundamentally misunderstood and under-appreciated within many organizations. Instead of being involved in strategic decisions from the start, UX professionals are often relegated to implementation roles—brought in to "make things pretty" after all the important decisions have already been made.True UX work—which should touch every aspect of how users interact with an organization—frequently runs into organizational silos. The kind of cross-functional collaboration required for excellent user experience threatens established power structures and comfortable routines. As a result, UX's wings are clipped, its scope limited to safe, contained projects that won't ruffle too many feathers.The promise of UX isn't just about better interfaces—it's about better organizations. But that promise remains largely unfulfilled in many companies.These challenges aren't just frustrating for UX practitioners; they're holding back organizations from delivering truly exceptional user experiences. The gap between what's possible and what's actually being delivered continues to widen.Throughout the rest of this email course, we'll explore these challenges in detail and, more importantly, discuss practical strategies for overcoming them. Because understanding the problem is only the first step—what matters is how we respond to it.Your Turn: Reflect and ShareIn our next email, we'll explore what it means to be a true UX designer within an organization. But, between now and then, I encourage you to reflect on your current role. Consider whether there's a gap between what others in your organization expect from you and what you believe you should be doing. Are you being asked to simply "make things pretty," or are you empowered to shape meaningful experiences.Take a moment to jot down your thoughts. This reflection will be valuable as we dive deeper into defining and claiming our role as UX professionals.Also, if you wouldn't mind, share those thoughts with me by replying to this email. Your insights will help shape the future content of this course, ensuring it addresses the real challenges you face in your UX role. I read every response and use them to make this journey more valuable for everyone.User Experience design has evolved far beyond its digital roots. From ancient Roman architects to industrial designers, and finally to today's digital interfaces - the journey of UX shows how we've always strived to create better human experiences.

What do Spotify, Google Meet, and your expense report tool have in common? They could all delight your users—if you design for more than just function. In this episode, Dr. Nesrine Changuel breaks down the emotional motivators that transform average products into unforgettable ones. Overview What separates a good product from a great one? According to Dr. Nesrine Changuel, it's not just meeting functional needs—it's creating emotional delight. In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner sits down with Nesrine, a former product leader at Google, Spotify, and Microsoft, to explore how emotional connection is the secret sauce behind the world’s most beloved products. They dive into Nesrine’s “Delight Framework,” reveal how seemingly mundane tools (like time-tracking software or toothbrush apps!) can create joy, and explain why delight isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s a competitive edge. Whether you're a product owner, product manager, or just want to build better user experiences, this episode will change how you think about your backlog forever. References and resources mentioned in the show: Dr. Nesrine Changuel Product Delight by Dr. Nesrine Changuel Blog: What is a Product? by Mike Cohn #116: Turning Weird User Actions into Big Wins with Gojko Adzic #124: How to Avoid Common Product Team Pitfalls with David Pereira Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Dr. Nesrine Changuel is a product coach, advisor, and speaker with over a decade of senior product management experience at Google, Spotify, and Microsoft, where she led major consumer products like Chrome, Meet, Spotify, and Skype. She holds a Master’s in Electrical Engineering and a PhD in Media Processing and Telecommunications and is based in Paris. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian Milner (00:00) Welcome back Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always Brian Milner and today I have a very special guest with me. I have Dr. Nesrine Changuel with me. Welcome in Nesrine. Nesrine (00:14) Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. Brian Milner (00:16) I'm very excited to have Nesreen with us. I think this is going to be a really, really great episode for all of you product owners out there or product specialists, anybody who works in the product area. I think you're going to find this really interesting and you're going to want to bookmark this one. Maybe even come back to this a little bit. Nesreen is a coach, a speaker, particularly in the product area. She has previously worked at Google. She's worked at Spotify, at Microsoft, so no stranger to large enterprise, very high profile products that she's worked on in the past. She has a book coming out in May, so look for this book. It's called Product Delight. And that's really what we're going to be focusing on here is the concept of eliciting or generating kind of an emotional response to our product. I guess I'll start by, did you stumble upon this? What drew your interest to people's emotional response to products? Nesrine (01:19) Yes, so maybe I can share the story how I came to this topic and how I became so vocal about it. So in addition to being a product manager and leader over the last decade, I was always and I always enjoyed being a speaker. So I always wanted to go on stage and share insight. This is probably coming from my research background, because when I used to be a researcher, I traveled the world to go and present my research work and When I became a product manager, I kept this habit with me. So I always been on stage and I spoke about different topics like product discovery, product operation, different topics. Until one day I got reached out by a conference organizer and he said, Hey, Nisri, we want you on stage, but we have an idea for a topic for you. I'm not that used. Usually I come up with idea myself, but I said, okay, what do want me to talk about? And he said, Hey, Nusreen, you have been working for Spotify, for Microsoft, for Google Chrome and Google Meet, and we all admire those products and we consider them very successful products. What if you come and tell us what's the common thing that probably is there any common thing that made those products successful? Being an insider, being within those company, could you share with us something that you consider in common between those products? To be honest with you, I found it challenging at the same time interesting as an exercise. I was not, by the way, able at that time to answer the question, what's in common? So I sat down and I did the exercise myself and I started to think what was really in common? What made Skype Skype? What made Spotify Spotify and those Google products so successful? And I came to the following conclusion. I found that what made those products so successful is that they don't only solve for functional needs, but they also solve for emotional needs. So when we use a particular product, we use it for a certain functional need, but we also use it for an emotional need. And without even knowing that I have been doing it for more than 12 years, I came to the conclusion that, my God, during all those years, I have been focusing so much into users need from both angle, functional and emotional. So I came on stage and I spoke about that topic and from that day, I started to give it a name. I'm calling it emotional connection. I'm calling it product delight. And I'm here to share more about it as well. Brian Milner (03:50) That's awesome, yeah. I mean, I think we do hear a lot and we focus a lot on that functional kind of need, the way you differentiate there. think that's a good differentiation, functional and emotional kind of needs or motivators there. yeah, I mean, I've always heard, know, kind of that kind of general product advice is, you know, find the things that... people really, really have as huge needs, the things they would pay someone to do for them. And that's the key to success is finding those huge needs. But we're actually going beyond that to say, yeah, those are important. It's not to say that we should skip that, but it's when there's the emotional connection to a feature or to something that we do that really the light bulb kind of comes on for our customers. Is that kind of what your research is leading to? Nesrine (04:40) you're getting it right. Don't get me wrong. Of course you have to honor the functional needs and serve the functional feature, but the delight or the emotional connection happens when you go beyond exactly how you said it. Let me explain. If you serve only functional needs, you know what you get? You get satisfied users because they are asking for something and they are satisfied about what they are receiving. Now, Brian Milner (04:41) Okay, okay. Haha. Nesrine (05:05) If you surprise them by going beyond, by anticipating their need, by exceeding their expectation, you're not only satisfying them, you're surprising them in a positive way and delight is the combination of surprise and joy. Actually, the theoretical definition of delight is a combination of two emotions, surprise and joy. So going beyond, anticipate need and exceed expectation. is what we should aim for in addition to the functional needs. Brian Milner (05:35) That's awesome. Yeah, I use this example sometimes in, we use this example in the agile world to talk about, you know, the part of the agile manifesto that says customer collaboration over contract negotiation. And, you know, there's an example I use from my past where I used to work at a company that was very contract driven. And, you know, the thing that I always used to kind of take away from that was the very best we could ever do or hope to do. was to meet our customers' expectations. We could never, ever exceed it because we were only doing exactly what they told us to do. So I think this is a really important distinction here to make that just meeting the customer's needs, just meeting the minimal customer satisfaction bar, that's not going to keep you with loyal customers. That's not going to have repeat customers, or they're not going to tell their friends about, you know. That product did exactly what I hoped it would do. But it didn't really surprise me. It didn't really go beyond that. I know you talked about, because I've read your blog and a little bit of the discussion about this. So I know you talk about in the blog kind of the connection to Kano analysis. And I've always thought that's a really great way to try to determine things to target and go after. So talk to us a little bit about that, about Kano analysis and kind of what that uncovers and how that connects to what your research has shown. Nesrine (06:51) Yes. I love Kano by the way. I, I mean, that's one of the framework I have been considering throughout most of my product career. But this framework comes with a limitation and let me explain. So first of all, for those who are not very familiar with Kano, Kano is a visualization or categorization, let's call it. It's a categorization framework that allows to categorize features among different categories. One of them is must have. So these are the things that absolutely have to be in the product. Other that are performances, which are the more you have, the more satisfied users are, the less they less satisfied they are. And of course there are the delighters and delighters are those feature that when they are in the product, users are surprisingly happy. And when they are not, are not even the satisfaction is not even impacted. So the limitation of Kano is that it doesn't tell you how to achieve delight. Let me explain. I think we live in a world that everyone agree that we should delight our users. I mean, this, this concept is now globalized and everyone is talking about delighting users. The issue is that we don't know how to delight them. So we know category, there's a category that called delight, but we don't know how to. So the, the framework that I'm introducing and I'm calling it the delight framework is the framework that allows to first identify. So it's usually, represented into three steps. The first step is to start by identifying the emotional and functional motivators. So let me give you an example. I've been working at Spotify for about four years and as a Spotify user, imagine yourself, you are a Spotify user. You do have, of course, functional motivators. What could be the functional motivators? Listening to music, listening to podcasts, maybe listening to an audiobook. So all those are functional motivators. Now, what could be the emotional motivators as a Spotify user? It could be feeling less lonely. It could be feeling more productive because when you're working you need to listen to something. It could be about changing your mood. It could be about feeling connected. So all those are emotional motivators that drive users to use a product like Spotify. So what I encourage every product manager or every product team to do at first is to dig into identifying, of course, the functional need. And everyone is good, by the way, in identifying the functional needs. But also, while doing that exercise, pay attention to what could be the emotional motivators. So that's step number one is about listing the functional and the emotional motivators. Once you have those, Now we get to the second part of the framework, which is look at your backlog. And I guess you have a very busy backlog and take those features one by one and see for this particular feature, which motivator am I solving for among the functional ones and among the emotional ones as well. So the delight grid, for example, is a visualization tool that I came and created in order to allow product teams to visualize their backlog and see how many of my features are only solving for functional motivators. In that case, we call that category low delight. How many of my features are only solving for emotional motivators? These are very rare, but the best example I would call is, for example, I'm having an Apple watch and one month ago it was New Year Eve and at midnight I get fireworks popping out of my Brian Milner (10:35) Ha Nesrine (10:36) Apple watch and it was a happy new year there's nothing functional in there but it's all about creating some smile I call this surface delight and then how many of your features are solving for both functional and emotional motivators and I call this deep delight so maybe I deviated a bit from your question compared to canoe but it's actually about adding this dimension of connecting features to the real motivators of the users. Brian Milner (11:07) No, maybe a little bit, but you connected it to where we end up going anyway. So I think that's a great connection there. And by the way, for anyone listening, we'll link to all of this so that you can find this and follow up. But I like that differentiation between surface delight and deep delight. I know some of the examples that I've heard used kind of frequently in looking at Kano analysis and kind of trying to find those delighters. And that is kind of the area that it specifies there in Canoe, right? You're trying to find those things that are not expected, but when people find that they're there, they like that it's there, but they don't expect it's there. So if it's not there, there's no negative response that it's not there, but there's a positive response if it's there because they like seeing it. And my boss, Mike Cohn, tells this story about this Nesrine (11:59) Yes. Brian Milner (12:03) There's a hotel in California that became famous because at the pool, they have a phone that's by the pool that's the Popsicle Hotline. And you can pick up the phone and you can order a Popsicle to be brought to the pool. And it's the kind of thing where you're not going to go search for a hotel. Does this hotel have a Popsicle Hotline? I'm only going to stay at hotels with Popsicle Hotlines. It's not that kind of a normal feature. It's a delight feature because when you see it and you find out it's there, it's like, that's really cool. And it can be the kind of thing that says, yeah, I want to search that hotel out again next time I'm in this area because I really thought that was a nice little attention to detail and it was fun. But I think what I'm hearing from you is that might be more of what we would classify as a surface delight. It's not really meeting a deep need. Nesrine (12:35) Yes. Brian Milner (12:56) But it's fun, it's exciting, it's not expected, but it doesn't really cross that threshold into, but it also meets kind of functional delights. Is that kind of what you're saying there? Okay. Okay. Nesrine (13:08) Yes, actually I heard about that hotel story just to tell you how much viral it went. It came to me. So actually you get it correct that I consider that as surface delight and I have nothing against by the way, surface delight. You can add surface delight. The issue is you can end up doing only surface delight and that's not enough. So the idea is to do a combination and I do have two stories to share with you just to compliment on this hotel story. One is personal and one is professional. Brian Milner (13:21) Yeah. Okay. Nesrine (13:37) The personal one just happened to me a month ago. I went to Sweden and I went to Stockholm. That's where I worked for eight years. And I went there for business and I decided to meet some friends and some ex-colleagues. So we all gathered and went to a restaurant, a very nice restaurant in Sweden. And came the time where we had to say goodbye and to pay. And I guess you can feel it immediately when it's about paying and we are a large group and you start to get that anxiety about who's paying what and what did I order? What did I drink? What? I mean, I honestly hate that moment, especially in a large group where you don't necessarily have a lot of affinity with us. Like, should we split in 10? Should we pay each one paying its piece anyway? So that was a moment of frustration, of anxiety. Brian Milner (14:09) right. Yeah. Nesrine (14:28) And I loved how the restaurant solved it for it. You know how they solve for it? I mean, maybe it exists in the U.S., but for me, that's something I never seen before. The waiter came with a QR code on a piece of paper and you scan the QR code. And when you scan your QR code, you get the list of items that got purchased by the table. And all you have is to pick, and that happens automatically real time. Everyone is picking at the same time. You pick the things from the list and you pay. for the things that you order. You can even tip on the bottom. You can give feedback. Everything happened on that QR code. And you can guess how much that anxiety could be removed. So that's the personal story I wanted to share. The second story, which is more professional, I want to share how we try to improve experience at Google Chrome. So I've been the product manager at Google Chrome. Brian Milner (15:13) Yeah. Nesrine (15:25) And we started from the observation that people do have plenty of open tabs. I guess you are one of them, especially on mobile. Like on mobile, you go and check how many open tabs you do have on Chrome and you realize that they are have, we realized at least out of numbers, out of data that people do have plenty of open tabs. So it started as Brian Milner (15:32) You Nesrine (15:47) technical issue. Of course, the more tab you have, the heavier the app is, the slower the app could be, et cetera. So we wanted to reduce the number of unnecessary open tabs in Chrome. So we interviewed users and we started to check with them, why do they even leave their tabs open? So some of them leave tabs because they consider them as a reminder. I mean, if tab is open, it means that you need to finish a task there. Some people really leave tabs just for ignorance. mean, they moved from a tab to another and they completely forget about them. Actually, we realized that the fact of leaving tab open, the reason for leaving tab could be completely different from a person to another. And the other interesting observation, and when I say identify emotional motivators, you will realize that people feel a bit ashamed when they show to us that they do have plenty of open tabs. Some of them would say, sorry, I usually don't even have so many open tabs. It's only now. And I'm like, it's okay. But the point is, if you have this mindset of trying to track the emotional insight from your users, you will take note. And the note was anxiety, feeling ashamed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that was in introduction for in... Brian Milner (16:42) You Yeah, right. Nesrine (17:04) improving the tab management experience later on in Chrome. Brian Milner (17:07) That's actually a really good parallel, though. I think that's a good example because it reminds me, too, even going back, I remember one of the things, and I'm going way back here, but I remember one of the things about Gmail that was kind of a selling point initially was the concept there of you don't have to worry about maintaining an inbox. keep all your mails and search. And you can search through your mails and find whatever it is. And I remember prior to that, most people would use something like Outlook or something like that to have their mail, there was always this constant struggle of, I've got to keep it down. I've got to delete things. I've got to categorize things. And Google had this different approach of, don't worry about it. Just leave it. And that's a good, I think, example as well of kind of that emotional response of, Nesrine (17:48) Yes. Brian Milner (17:56) Gosh, I'm kind of anxious. I feel bad that my inbox is so big. And I know that's bad, but Google comes along and says, don't worry about it. You're not bad. It's OK. Yeah. Nesrine (18:05) Yeah, yeah. And by the way, I think Gmail is filled with plenty of deep delight features. One of them I can quickly highlight is, you know, when you send an email, we're saying attached file and the file is not there. And when you try to hit send, you get that pop up like a be careful or like a mind, there is no attached file inside. These are for me like very attached to the fact that You don't want to feel ashamed. You don't want to look stupid later on saying, Hey, sorry, I forgot the file. Here's the file. That's, that's a great example. And the other example that come to mind again in Gmail, you know, that smart compose when you're trying to answer an email and you can just hit tab, tab, tab to complete the sentence. I mean, the functional need is to write an email. The emotional need is to get it in a relaxed way. And the combination would allow for something like. Brian Milner (18:49) Yeah. Nesrine (19:00) Smart Compose. Brian Milner (19:01) That's awesome. Yeah, so I guess that leads to the question though, when we're talking about something like Spotify, mean, music intrinsically is emotional anyway, right? It's something that you have an emotional connection to and you feel a certain way when you hear music. But if my product is a, I don't know, expense reporting software, right? Nesrine (19:23) Mm-hmm. Brian Milner (19:25) I can just hear people out there kind of asking, know, and kind of thinking to themselves, yeah, but my product, right, my product is not that kind of, it doesn't elicit that kind of emotional response in people the same way music would. So does this apply to me as well? So how would you answer those people who feel like my products might be a little bit more bland or boring and don't really intrinsically have an emotional connection to them? Nesrine (19:47) Mm-hmm. So my answer is that if your product is boring, then it's even more priority now to focus on emotional connection. But let me elaborate. So that's one of the reflections that came to my mind while writing the book. So while writing the book, I wanted the book to be a storytelling book. So I was writing a lot of my stories, stories from Skype at the time, Spotify and all the Google product. But at some point I said, hey, hey, Nisreen, you need to get more insight from other people and other experiences. So I get to interview product leaders from completely different industries and completely different domain. I interviewed leaders from B2B like Atlassian or Intuit and so many other companies that I don't have so much insight from. I even interviewed people from hardware, like I interviewed someone from Dyson and I was, hey, what makes Dyson so emotionally attractive for me? Cause I love my Dyson vacuum cleaner. But let me get to your point because when I interviewed someone from Intuit, that person told me something super interesting. She told me that at some point she was working at a tool called Tsheet. And Tsheet is a tool that allows you to enter your time report. There is nothing more boring than that. I think I'm picking the one that you're looking for here because it's, it's as a user. The only reason I would use this tool is to report my time so I can get paid. Brian Milner (21:06) Hmm. Right. Yeah. Nesrine (21:19) There is nothing exciting, nothing emotional. And what I got out of that product leader who used to be the head of product at the time, she told me that they were completely aware about the fact that the product is not that attractive. And instead of living with that observation, they did all what they could do to make it even more attractive. So they added some fun. They made the messaging less aggressive and less about enter your time. report but rather into more playful and even the images are more playful. When you press the enter time report you get the congratulation and some confetti if needed. So they explicitly turned and that's a strategy. They turned that boring moment into something even more attractive and they had to do that otherwise the experience will keep on becoming more more boring and the perception of users toward the product will be even less, more and more gray, I would say. Brian Milner (22:22) Yeah, yeah, just that little dopamine kind of kick, right? Just that little bit of chemical reaction in your brain can make a huge difference. That's awesome. That's a great story and a great answer to that question. So I'm curious, we're talking about trying to find these things and trying to see, your matrix here, it thinks about the emotional motivators, the functional motivators, and trying to find those things that kind of cross both planes. Nesrine (22:24) Yep. Brian Milner (22:52) How do you verify at the end? Because if you're lining your features up and think, I think this solves this emotional thing. I think this solves this functional thing. Is there a way to follow up to ensure that it actually is doing that? How do you follow up to make sure it's really doing what you thought it would do? Nesrine (23:09) Yes, so let's imagine you did the exercise well, you filled in the delight grade and you observed that you do have plenty of low delights, which is most of the cases by the way. The very first thing I recommend is to see opportunities for moving or transforming these features into deep delight. And in the book, for example, I talk about the nine delighters. Nine delighters are ways that could be sometimes cheap even to introduce. in order to make those low delight features into more deep delight. This could be, for example, through personalization. We love when the features are personalized, and that's one of the reasons, for example, why Spotify is so successful, is through features like Discover Weekly or RAPT or these kinds of super personalization related features. It could be through seasonality. That's, for me, the cheapest and the most delightful feature you can or aspect of feature you can add to your product. So for example, when I worked at Google Meet, I've been working at the background replace features. So we have been, of course, introducing static image. We have been introducing video backgrounds as well. But from time to time, we always use seasonality to introduce what we call seasonal background. So when it's Easter, we introduce Easter background. When it's Christmas, we introduce Christmas background. Guess what? Even like for Olympic game, we introduce Olympic game background. When it's the Earth Day, we introduced Earth Day background. So there is always an opportunity to introduce some seasonality to the product. And guess what? We relate to those, especially if the product is global. We relate like last, when was it? Like last Wednesday. It was the new year, the Chinese new year. And I was checking when is exactly the exact date for the new year, the Chinese new day. And I put that and you know what happened in Chrome? It got these dragons and those like the celebration within the product, like within Chrome. These of course are surface delight, but you know what? Why not? You see? So there are some tools. Some of them are not that... Brian Milner (25:17) Right. Nesrine (25:22) expensive to introduce to the product. Some would require a bit more thoughtful and thought into it, but there are ways that I detail in the book in order to introduce more delight. And then if you want to validate through metrics, and I guess that's your question where it's heading to, then the good news, and that's something that I discovered recently because there's been a study that was conducted by McKinsey. And you know what they studied? They studied the impact of emotional connection on product adoption. So they actually studied over, I don't know how many industries die, like tourism, IT, energy, whatever. And they interviewed more than 100,000 users or whatever. So the conclusion that they found out of that very interesting study is that emotionally connected users will get you more twice as more revenue, twice as more referral, and twice as more retention compared to satisfied users. I'm not talking about the non-satisfied. So if you take two groups of users, those that you satisfy their needs and those that you go beyond and they are emotionally connected, those that are emotionally connected get you twice revenue, referral and retention. Brian Milner (26:19) Hmm. Nesrine (26:43) So this is just to highlight that for people who say, no, but this is the cherry on the top. This is just like the extra. It's not the extra, it's the way to stand out. I don't know any company that is standing out nowadays without investing into emotional connection, none. Brian Milner (26:54) Yeah. That's a really good point. Yeah, I mean, the example that comes to my mind when you talked about seasonality and other things like that, know, I love my, you know, they're not a sponsor, Oral-B toothbrush, you know, the electronic toothbrush, and you know, there's an app with it and it keeps track of, you know, did you get all the areas of your teeth and did you hold it there long enough and... One of the things I always love about it is when it gets to December, the opening screen when you open up the app starts having snowfall. It's kind of a funny little emotional response, but you look at that and you think, that's cool. Yeah, it is kind of that season where now it's time to get ready for Christmas and it's that special. It's only this month that it's going to be like that. It's going to go away at the end of the month. Nesrine (27:45) Yes. Brian Milner (27:49) feel little sad when it's gone, it's back to normal. But it's such a silly little thing. Does that make any difference in really brushing my teeth at all? Does it change how well I brush my Not really. It's just a fun little thing that when it pops up there. And think how little that took from someone to do that. It's a little animation that they just pop up on a loading screen. But that little tiny bit, think, again, maybe a little bit surface. Nesrine (28:10) Yes. Brian Milner (28:16) but it takes something that would have been routine. It takes something that would have been kind of boring otherwise, and it just added a little bit of fun to it, you know? And I think you're right, that emotional connection is really, really important in situations like that, yeah. Nesrine (28:21) Yes. Yes. Yes, yeah. And the thing that I'm very vocal about nowadays is the fact that this emotional connection is actually not a new topic. It's something that has been extremely popular among marketers. For example, if you think about the best marketing campaign, they are all very emotional. The most successful marketing campaign are. If you think about designers, there are plenty of resources about emotional design. There is a great book by Don Norman. It was called emotional design. Aaron Walter as well wrote something called Designing for Emotion. But you know, the problem is that among engineers and among product manager, we don't talk that much about that. And you know what happened when we are not informed about this topic? There is a gap between the language of marketers, designers, and the engineers and product manager. And that gap doesn't allow things to succeed. I'm trying to educate the engineers and the product world towards this well-known domain outside of the product in order to have this consistency and start making real impactful products. Brian Milner (29:40) Yeah, yeah, this is such a really deep topic and it just encourages me, think, even more to recommend the book there. It's not out yet, time of this recording it's not out, but it's going to be in May of 2025. That's when this book is coming out. And I know it's gonna have a lot of really good information in it. Again, the book is gonna be called Product Delight. by Nesrine Changuel, Dr. Nesrine Changuel. I should make sure I say that. But I really appreciate you coming on because this is fascinating stuff. And I think the product managers, the product owners that are listening here are going to find this really fascinating. So I appreciate you sharing your time and your insights with us, Nesrine. Nesrine (30:26) Thank you, it's my pleasure. I love talking about this topic. Brian Milner (30:29) Ha

In this finale episode of Design As, host Lee Moreau reflects on the season, and also includes an exclusive interview with famed designer Don Norman, recorded  at the Design Research Society 2024 Conference hosted in Boston in June 2024.A full transcript of the show, plus more bonus content, can be found hereLooking to be the site of the next season of Design As? Get in touch here! 

Don Norman, the legendary designer who coined the term "User Experience" and served as Apple's VP, shares insights from his remarkable career. At 89, he reveals why most designers fail to reach the C-suite, how AI will reshape design (not replace it), and his mission to revolutionise design education. Grab a cup of tea and settle in, this conversation might change everything you do from now on. For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme. Learn more here

we're diving into the top UX trends for 2024 that every designer needs to know. From AI-powered experiences to sustainable design and emerging markets, we're breaking down the biggest shifts happening right now and sharing practical tips to help you stay ahead of the curve. In this episode, we'll explore: ✨ The role of AI in shaping the future of UX

Don Norman เจ้าพ่อดีไซน์และผู้เขียนหนังสือสุดคลาสสิก The Design of Everyday Things ผู้บุกเบิกแนวคิดการออกแบบที่เน้นผู้ใช้เป็นศูนย์กลาง (Human-Centered Design) อดีตผู้บริหาร Apple หัวหน้าทีมวิจัยและพัฒนา ผู้คิดค้นและขับเคลื่อนแนวคิด User Experience (UX) เน้นย้ำถึงความสำคัญของประสบการณ์ผู้ใช้บนอุปกรณ์ที่มีเทคโนโลยีซับซ้อน วันนี้กับหนังสือเล่มใหม่ Design for a Better World ในวัย 89 ปี Don Norman ต้องการขยายขอบเขตของปรัชญาวิชาออกแบบไปอีกขั้น สู่การออกแบบเพื่อมนุษยชาติ (Humanity-Centered Design) เพราะการออกแบบที่ตอบโจทย์โลกปัจจุบันจะต้องยั่งยืน ต้องคำนึงถึงผลกระทบที่กว้างกว่าแค่ประสบการณ์ของผู้ใช้ ต้องใส่ใจผู้มีส่วนได้ส่วนเสียทุกมิติ ดังนั้นนักออกแบบที่ดีในยุคนี้ต้องสวมบท ‘วาทยกร' แล้วศาสตร์และศิลป์ของนักออกแบบในคราบวาทยกรมีหน้าตาเป็นแบบใด ชวนเข้าเรียนวิชา Humanity-Centered Design กับอาจารย์ Don Norman ไปด้วยกันใน THE SECRET SAUCE เอพิโสดนี้

The original goal of those in the field of usability was pretty simple: to make products and environments that were more usable for those who were interacting with them. By looking at how to make better products, there was the potential to make life better as well. If greater profitability could be gained through these efforts, then great. At the same time, this was not necessarily the primary goal. Profit was not to be done over people. Rather, profit would happen when people were happier with their products. There has been a shift in usability, however. Part of that shift lies in the name itself, which is now known as user experience (or UX). Coined by Don Norman during his time at Apple, UX went beyond just how ‘usable' a product was. Rather, it referred to the totality of the experience that a user had with the product (which could include usability but was not limited to it). Still, though, the goal was to make things better, if just in a larger scope. Some things have changed when it comes to UX. Don Norman has criticized contemporary UX as not being ‘real' ux in the traditional sense. There have been other critiques as well, especially around what is known as ‘dark patterns.' This kind of UX work uses social science and design to create environments that are manipulative and aimed primarily (or solely) on profit. Or, what might be considered to be the antithesis of UX. Karen T. Lin also has some thoughts on the direction of UX today, and what might need to be done to fix it. Karen has worked as a Chief Experience Officer and Head of UX for startups and financial institutions. More importantly, in my opinion,  she initiated the #StopUXErasure effort which is aimed at restoring UX, as well as reducing the tech supremacy which impacts our lives in negative ways. We talk about a range of issues related to experience design and user experience, including:Product dictatorships – uphill battle in UX in terms of advocating for human-centered design in a company. A lot of the battle is with the power in the company (IT or development). Trying to convince them, if you give up some of your control or power, does that allow us to find out what people actually want Profiting because of positive experience rather than at the expense of experienceWhat does it mean to have a human and user centered ethosThe power and politics inherent in design processes, and why it is important to act on behalf of those who are at risk from negative intent

Listen & subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and other platforms. Don Norman, a pioneering figure in design and user experience, has profoundly influenced how we think about human-centered design. Known widely for his book, The Design of Everyday Things, Norman has helped shift the focus toward intuitive, accessible design that prioritizes user needs. His impact spans industries, and he is celebrated for making design thinking an integral part of product and technology development. As the founder of the Design Lab at UC San Diego, Norman has continued to shape the future of design, inspiring a new generation to build with empathy and inclusivity at the forefront. In 2024, Don Norman's legacy takes a new step with the launch of the Don Norman Design Awards (DNDA), a global initiative celebrating excellence in humanity-centered design. The DNDA emphasizes the importance of designs that make a meaningful impact in real-world communities, with categories recognizing ‘Excellence,' ‘Promising,' and ‘Educational' contributions. By acknowledging projects and individuals who demonstrate innovation in community-focused design, the DNDA aims to promote solutions that drive societal change and enhance quality of life. The awards ceremony and DNDA Summit will take place on November 14-15, 2024 in San Diego, gathering designers, thought leaders, and changemakers to discuss and share ideas on advancing humanity-centered design. The event will feature a formal forum, as well as an “unconference” where participants can engage in workshops led by the community. Through these awards, Don Norman continues to champion the power of thoughtful design, encouraging new voices to push boundaries and impact the world. Listen & subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and other platforms you enjoy your podcasts for our conversation with Don as he shares his lifetime journey and how he's inspiring and empowering generations to come.

Welcome to Growthmates with Kate Syuma — Growth advisor, previously Head of Growth Design at Miro. I'm building Growthmates as a place to connect with inspiring leaders to help you grow yourself and your product. Here you can learn how companies like Dropbox, Adobe, Canva, Loom, and many more are building excellent products and growth culture. Get all episodes and a free playbook for Growth teams on our brand-new website — growthamtes.club, and press follow to support us on your favorite platforms. Listen now and subscribe on your favorite platforms — Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube (new!).In this episode, I chat with Jason Giles — a VP of Product Design at UserTesting.com. We dove into his journey, from working as an electronic musician to becoming a leader in the tech industry. Jason shares his unique story about transitioning into the UX field during his time at Microsoft, his experiences with design leadership, and how human-centered design became his foundation. We also dive into the importance of research, debunking 3 myths about its cost and time, and Jason's insights into democratizing research within organizations.—Brought to you by Command.ai — a user-focused platform offering an alternative to traditional popups or chatbots. Their AI “Copilot” answers questions, performs actions, and simplifies complex tasks. Use “Nudges” to guide users with timely, relevant messages, all within a no-code platform. Perfect for Product, Support, and Marketing teams to positively influence user behavior while respecting their needs: https://command.ai/—Key highlights from this episode

Giant Robots On Tour Hosts Sami Birnbaum and Jared Turner introduce Sheng-Hung Lee, a designer, PhD researcher at MIT AgeLab, and board director at the Industrial Designers Society of America. Sheng-Hung shares his journey into design and engineering, emphasizing the importance of interpreting signals in design and the evolving role of designers from problem-solvers to culture shapers. He discusses how designers must now consider broader, systematic issues such as climate change and aging. Sheng-Hung explains that design is a teachable and essential life skill, highlighting the significance of personal experiences and failures in learning design. He elaborates on the concept of signals, explaining that they represent different perspectives and interpretations in design, which are crucial in addressing complex problems. The conversation shifts to practical design applications and Sheng-Hung's work in smart homes for aging populations. He discusses the integration of various smart systems and the importance of designing for different life stages rather than specific age groups. Jared and Sami also engage Sheng-Hung in discussing the worst and best-designed products, where Sheng-Hung mentions his initial skepticism but eventual appreciation for facial recognition technology. MIT AgeLab (https://agelab.mit.edu/) Industrial Designers Society of America (https://www.idsa.org/) Follow Sheng-Hung Lee on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/shenghunglee/). Visit his website: shenghunglee.com (https://www.shenghunglee.com/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Transcript:  SAMI: Hello again, and this is The Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots podcast, the Giant Robots On Tour Series coming to you from Europe, West Asia, and Africa, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Sami Birnbaum. JARED: And I'm your other host, Jared Turner. SAMI: If you are wondering, which you might have been for a while now, where are Will or Victoria, well, make sure you find one of our previous podcasts where we introduce the Giant Robots on Tour Series, and you'll understand why you're hearing myself and Jared a little bit more frequently than before. In that podcast, we throw random icebreakers at each other, and we find out that Svenja does not like online banking. And if you haven't listened to our previous podcast with our guest, Ishani, check that out as quick as you can and find out why AI is compared to babies. Joining us today is Sheng-Hung Lee, a Designer and PhD Researcher at MIT AgeLab and Board Director at the Industrial Designers Society of America. Sheng-Hung, I'm going to level with you. I've done my research. I've done my due diligence on the guests that we have on this podcast, and I'm exhausted. SHENG-HUNG: [laughs] SAMI: I've looked through your own website, and I've read as much as I can find about you. And between education, experience, awards, scholarships, there is an incredible amount of things that you're involved in that you get up to. And it really wasn't good for my own self-esteem just to see how much you have going on. SHENG-HUNG: [laughs] SAMI: Jared, a question for you first. Bear in mind, the only thing I've ever been awarded is my own driving license. So, our guest, Sheng-Hung, how many awards do you think he has currently listed on his website? Give a guess. JARED: Oh gosh, I remember looking at the page, and I remember having to scroll. SAMI: [laughs] Yeah, you had to scroll. JARED: Let's pick 33. SAMI: 33. Do you know what? It's not even close. Okay, he's nearly double that. So, he's up at 60 awards that are currently listed. So, we're talking about a guest that you guys do not want to miss. And you want to make sure that you get into this conversation. I always like to go back to the start with my guests. So, everyone has a story. And I'm interested, Sheng-Hung, in your journey and what led you into the world of design and engineering. SHENG-HUNG: My personal definition of design is, like, decoding signals. So, everything in our lives, like, we have different types of signals. How do we interpret the signal? How do we, like, understand, or perceive different types of signals in our lives? And I feel design is more like...not just creation. It is creation, for sure, but also about curation. I feel like, for me, problem-solving or, like, problem-defining is really interesting. And especially you mentioned, like, my very early stage as a designer, the reason I submitted my work to get an award is because I want to show my problem-solving skill. And I realize nowadays, like, the problem is too complicated. It's not just about solving problems, right? I mean, I feel design is more bigger than that, especially now most of the problems are systematic and complex. Climate change, right? Like, you think about aging, and you think about all this, like, sustainable issues. I feel like designers, like, for me, starting from problem solver, as engineer, and now more I've become like a translator, curator, or even, like, a culture shaper. How do you shape the culture you want, right? Especially now, like, AI it's just, like...that really let me rethink about my role as designer, you know, because everyone can have tons of ideas, but the truth is, like, we have so many ideas, but do you know what good taste is about? Do you know what the good qualities of life's about? So, you have to have some personal experiences to really help people to understand or curate the vision in the future. SAMI: That's really interesting. I struggle to dress my kids in the morning from a design perspective, right? I don't get colors, and I don't understand necessarily how they match and how to get things working. In fact, sometimes I'll dress my kids only to find that my wife has redressed the kids. Things are that bad at home. Do you think then design is something which can be taught, or is it something, like, innate? Is it something, in your own experiences, that it's kind of part of your nature? So, you see the world differently to someone like myself or Jared sees the world. Or could that be something which we could pick up on, you know, and learn about? SHENG-HUNG: Yeah, I definitely think design can be teachable. It's skillable. And I feel like, yeah, people talk about this is, like, a hardcore skill. It's a soft skill. No, I think design is a life skill. It's a human skill. So, that includes like, for example, like, yeah, how do you choose the color? How do you choose the clothes for kids? But also about, like, how do you celebrate the quality of lives, right? How do you, like, have better, like, qualities? And I feel like, I don't know, life skill means, like, team building, creative leadership, knows people, listening to people. And, for me, that's part of design because you're decoding different signals. You understand your life. You perceive different types of noises. Or how do you resonate with other people? And that's a life skill, I think. And I also feel most of the design skills I learned is actually not from school. It's from, like, personal life failure [laughs]. SAMI: That's really interesting. I just want to jump in because I don't know if I fully understand what you mean by signals. Can you just elaborate on that a little bit more? And then, I will bring you back up on personal failures. SHENG-HUNG: Signal is like different ways of seeing things, right? So, for example, like, if I go to wait in line for a free bagel, right? You share this with your friends. What I see is it's a free bagel. But what my friends see is like, oh, probably, like, I don't need to wait in line and so many challenges. You know, I have to, like, oh, why should I get this? But I see very clearly I want a free bagel. So, these are different. It's the same thing but different message mixed up, right? And then, for me, I see design, like, it happens every day. It's a life skill. For example, like, I saw the challenges, but what if we think another perspective to rethink about what kind of challenge [inaudible 06:38] or reframe the right questions, right? And all this, like, mixed all together, it feels like it's not just about drawing beautiful sketches or rendering sexy, you know, ideas. It's all about, like, how do you frame these challenges? How do you look at this? Can you see the question from social aspect, from cultural aspect, or you just see this as a solution-driven approach? JARED: In some cases, I feel, there is an element of subjectivity to the designs, but then we also want to measure the success of a design. Do you have any tips for, like, how you go about putting numbers to what defines success for a particular design? SHENG-HUNG: This is such a great question, especially now my research focus is really on services, you know, service design, experience design. Like, how do you quantify this, right? For example, three of us we go to the restaurant, and I feel it's really, really great restaurant. And probably some people feel no, that's not really great. And then, how do we quantify this, right? And then, I feel it's sometimes, like, really by personal preferences. It's hard to measure. Maybe there will be some sort of, like, a principle direction or criteria we can follow, so, for example, service quality metrics or something, like, based on people's life experiences. I feel it's hard to measure, especially now the design challenge the question it's really complicated. Some people talk about demographic. How do you, like, [inaudible 08:09] design? Like, for example, a participant design process, right? Or, like, inclusiveness. People talk about equity, power, power dynamic. And I think it's less of a measure or quantify. It's more about do you show your respect? Can we be more inclusive in this process? Can we really engage or integrate multiple voices in this design process? And I feel like that kind of shows the flexibility, also, the real flexibility of the design, not just that, oh, we look for one single solution. Because, most of the time, we actually want to design for a solution, but, actually, I feel now the shift is from we try to build the condition to let people land on this condition and solve the problem. So, in the end, we'll be like, yeah, we landed here, and we can solve the problem together collectively. So, something I feel a little bit different, but that's a great question. It's open-ended. Yeah. JARED: Yeah. Thank you. There's a lot to think about there. I want to bring it back to failure because this is something I think about a lot in terms of teaching and learning from history versus learning from your own failure. We have, like, thousands of years of history of failure. You think we have made all the mistakes already, and, oh, it should be easy, right? All we need to do is teach all of the young generation about all of this failure, and then they'll remember not to do it. But in reality, it doesn't really work that way. I find the strength of the argument is oftentimes weak compared to failing yourself and really deeply learning that lesson. I'm curious about your thoughts on that. And then, I'm also curious to hear about some of your, let's call them, best failures. SHENG-HUNG: I personally feel like people fail. They fail forward, not backward. So, even if you fail, you move a little bit. It depends on how crazy, right, and how fast you fail. It's an iterative process. The reason I say learning from failure because from traditional Asian family, Asian students, right? Probably in the past, I would say I raised my hand. I want to learn, or I ask senior people. I want to learn. But, actually, more than that, it says, "I want to experience. I want to be part of it," right? So, you're not becoming the manager because you learn to become a...no, you're in that position, and you learn to be a manager. So, I learned that mindset when I worked at IDEO. And one of the senior design directors told me, "No, you should say, 'I want to experience.'" So, that means that you have fully immersed experiences. And one of the best examples for me is that the first two years I worked at IDEO and IDEO Asia, supporting projects in Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore offices, and sometimes European, like, office work; the first two years, my confidence almost collapsed. I have to collect my confidence. It's so hard because I'm eager to learn so many things. I didn't beat myself. And then, after two years, I met an amazing, like, design mentor. And I started the things I'm good at as product designer, a tangible designer. I start as product-focused and thinking about whole design process. And then, I start to collect my confidence. And I realized every single project at IDEO or in my life it's a vehicle, you know. And then, you always connect the dots when you're looking backwards. And you realize, oh, this is failure. Let me know what do you mean by client management? What do you mean by, like, teamworking? Because everyone is from so diverse background. And everyone says, "I'm a designer," but they have different interpretation. And how do you communicate it, right? And how do you keep the conversation transparent and also effective, and how do you empower people? And I feel because of that connect the dots process, also, all the things I want to learn, I want to experience it really helps me to grow at the third year or second year in IDEO. And that really makes me think about, oh, wow, I didn't know. I failed completely. And that's really healthy, for me, because you become very strong. At some point, I started to realize, oh, what do you mean by...what does it mean by design consultancy business? What we can sell. Where's our capacity, our limitation? You know, other than just, oh, everything's, like, imaginative conceptual. I kind of know what happened, and I know the boundary. And I know how can I empower people and also the client. SAMI: Yeah, embracing failure is a real strength. At thoughtbot, we kind of...if we're developing products and we're, let's say, designing or coding, whether websites or applications, we have this concept of failing fast. So, the faster you can fail, the quicker you can iterate towards the right solution. And that's something which is difficult to embrace because the first time you do it, I want this to be perfect, and I want to build it in the way that it works. But, actually, you'll spend a lot of time trying to get towards that perfection, and it's much better to ship faster, fail faster, and then get towards the solution. I noticed as well that...well, I read that the one thing you've been recently working on is designed for the aging population, so more specifically, smart homes for the aging populations. Shout out to my parents if they're looking for a smart home. Sorry, mom and dad. SHENG-HUNG: [laughs] SAMI: I've always found, especially my generation, so I'm about...I'm not about; I am 32 years [chuckles] old. So yeah, there's always been, like, a big gap between kind of my generation, the way we've engaged with technology products, the way my parents' generation have been able to. And I imagine a future where my kids are running around in VR headsets, and I'm still, you know, using a basic laptop. I would love to know more about your work kind of in this area and designing for a different sector of the population. SHENG-HUNG: My master thesis and my master project is focused on redesigning, like, smart footwear for aging population, and then that's part of the smart home ecosystem. And I was actually impressed and surprised. It's like most of the sponsors or clients we talk about, like, people [inaudible 14:38] to think about just the product level, so smart like [inaudible 14:43], smart like a door, or smart like, you know, like a bed or a smart, like, alarm clock. People start to think about how can we integrate all this system together? Because, like, for example, if you bought Amazon, you know, versus Apple and all these different devices, the platform is really a problem because the products cannot communicate with each other. And we want to make sure all the products can communicate and support you, or, like, they can at least receive your data or information to give the appropriate response. So, the smart home project starts to think about from ideas to become more like platform integration. IKEA is the best example, right? Like, I think two years ago, they talk about, yeah, they launched their first app, right? Everything is, yeah, it seems like, oh, what's the big deal about this, right? No, but you think of this from the intention perspective to actually connect the whole system together because they want to make sure their internal designer, developer they really can think through their own internal system to make sure everything's connected, interconnected, not just, oh, you do a part of this. We sell this to a certain Asian, and it didn't really connect. So, I feel like when we designed it, it's really from the system perspective to talk about a smart home. And then, regarding of, like, design across [inaudible 16:04] generation, that's really important, actually, because especially now I'm focused on design for retirement. And I shifted to design for longevity. And then, the cool thing about this is, like, we think about our life in terms of age, but, actually, now we need to think about our life in terms of different life stages, different lifestyle. The book called "Stage (Not Age)", means, like, now we cannot even describe people above 100 years old or 85 years. So, we call them future hood, right? So, like, different life stages. And I feel like that really impacts, as designers, the way we design products or interfaces, right? And it has to evolve with people. When you say, for example, if we have, like, a smart, like, a robot in our home, they have to know your personal routine. And you kind of grow, right? For example, oh, I get older. I move slower, or my mobility is different, and it changes. How does that mean to our product or our smart services? And I feel like across different generations, it's really thinking about design for different people in different life stages. And that's really important, not just about financial planning or about your future education, family, community, right? Now people are probably thinking about aging in place. My parents just bought a second home. They're thinking about retirement life. And so, these are things that really impact all aspects of life. And I feel like the idea of one solution for all the era is kind of over because we have to think about not just one solution, multiple solution tailor-made for multiple different people in different life stages. MID-ROLL AD: Are you an entrepreneur or start-up founder looking to gain confidence in the way forward for your idea? At thoughtbot, we know you're tight on time and investment, which is why we've created targeted 1-hour remote workshops to help you develop a concrete plan for your product's next steps. Over four interactive sessions, we work with you on research, product design sprint, critical path, and presentation prep so that you and your team are better equipped with the skills and knowledge for success. Find out how we can help you move the needle at: tbot.io/entrepreneurs. JARED: And, Sheng-Hung, in one of your articles that I was reading about design for longevity, you sort of say that design for aging isn't just about designing for older people, but rather, I think one of your colleagues asked this question, which I really liked, which is, how can inclusive methods build elegant design solutions that work for all? And I find that a really aspirational goal. But one of the things, say, at thoughtbot, when they're building a product, so we often talk about targeting a specific niche or a specific user base because then we can really optimize for them. And so, you're designing something that's elegant, and that works for all. It doesn't sound very easy. It sounds like a good challenge. And I'm curious about how do you go about that, and do you have any examples you can you can share? SHENG-HUNG: Design for all elegantly also seamlessly. Optimize everyone's needs or, like, design process. I feel...because my topic is focused on financial planning, right? And I think about everyone's income level is different. Their investable income asset is also different. We have a different situation, right? Our family issue, the healthcare condition is also different. And I feel like that, also, if we look at this question, we should think about, okay, how do we define design for all, right? Is it universal design, or is it inclusive design? I think there are definitely some, like, basic or fundamental, like, foundation or criteria we need to meet. Like, for example, human-centered, right? Or, like, we think about accessibility for certain technology. What's the threshold for a certain way of use the technology or product? That could be, like, a universal or, like, basic. Like I said, people's life stages are so different. And can we really make sure our product or interfaces is always dynamic, always change? Design for transformation, right? And I feel the ideas of changing is kind of scaring for most people. Because you don't want to, like, you woke up, and you realize your iPhone just update the whole interfaces, and you suddenly don't know how to use it [laughs]. It changed too dramatically. What I mean by change is like, it's a gradual integration process. And I feel that's kind of beautiful. Like, for example, the way I use my bicycle, the biking, right? They can ultimately adjust my speed, recharging, or understand my personal preferences. That could be something I think is powerful for future for providing the right solution, yeah. But also, it's a benefit of this, but also, there's downsides. Like, maybe because of that, we all live our own personal bubbles pretty well, right? Like, oh, yeah, yeah, I read a newspaper. No, you read the newspaper that I curated for you. So, somehow, the information started different [laughs]. So, there's a gap, but I don't know. It's very cool. It's very great, great question. I think there's still...I don't have the exact same answer, but I feel that could be potential for now. Yeah. JARED: Yeah, I really like that. So, it's not just a one-size-fits-all-all, but, like, it's a sort of an elegant transformation over the course of someone's life. We've discussed a few different things like design for longevity. You touched on there, as we were speaking, human-centered design. I know you've made a distinction of humanity-centered design as well, and there's also life-centered design. I wonder if you could give us and our listeners a little rapid-fire explainer of each of them. SHENG-HUNG: Like, when we talk about human-centered design, right? Like, it's, like, a buzzword. And everyone talks about HCD, and most people think, oh, if you got a post-it note, you're, like, a HCD designer. No, like, what does that mean, right [laughs]? It's very cliché. And they're like, oh, yeah, all these, like, HCD designers bring the post-it notes with Sharpies and go to facilitate tons of workshops, and they sit and know people. And I feel it's more than that, right? Human-centered is really, like, put yourself, designers, in the shoes of clients, users, customers, and participants to know their needs, their desire and address their pain point. And I think for human-centered design like Don Norman said in his latest book, it's not just about design as a discipline. It also covers, like, politics, covers, like, ethical issue, culture. It's broader. And, for me, the simplest version is, like, you design with care. You design with human temperature. We create technology with human temperature. That means that we're now for this technology to [inaudible 23:13] technology. We know why we need that technology. So, for example, if you provide the, like, the cell phone to the developing countries, you probably don't want to send, like, the latest cell phone. You want to send them, like, the adequate technology. What I mean by that is like, it's very, like, stereotype, but I'm trying to explain the idea is like, oh, Nokia could be a great option at this point, for example. You can communicate. You don't need, like, crazy, like, AR VR function. You at least can communicate. So, it's adequate. I think that kind of lens is, like, you think about the culture, the needs, economic, social status. And then, you can start to move on and upgrade the devices. And I feel like life-centered is even broader. It's like, can you design something to the lens of cats, your pets, your animals? So, it's really like, it's really...it sounds a little bit like a speculative design. But the truth is, like, we can shift our perspective to different kinds of species, cross-species, not just focus on human, because everything we design definitely starts from also for a human being. But now life-centered is like, it's longer, broader. And then, for me, it also means like, we just talk about life-centered. It's like, really think through all different stages of life, not just, like, focus on one single age or a single stage, too specific, too narrow. It's, like, broader. So, when we talk about life-centered design, LCD, we really think about a lot of different systems, framework. What's the model we can follow? You know, so we're also thinking about policy, about power dynamic, government, ethical issues. So, this, I think, like, it's broader, and it's really large. Sometimes it's pretty vague, for sure. We have to use some cases or really think about in different contexts. Context is really important, designed for different contextual knowledges and needs. SAMI: Yeah, I think that is actually a really helpful understanding. Myself I don't know anything about those concepts, so to kind of get that theoretical understanding and explanation from yourself is really helpful. In a more practical sense, I have a question, which is a very selfish question. The reason it's a selfish question is because I want to know what do you think? When you look at the world through your designer lenses, what do you think is the worst-designed product you've ever seen or come across? And I think I know the answer to this. I think there is a right answer. While you have a think, I'll share my answer. I don't know if you have this because you said you're based in Boston at the moment. And I'm showing you because we're on camera, but I will describe it to the listeners as well is what they've done with bottles now is when you open, like, a Coke bottle, for example, all other beverages are available...Coke, if you want to sponsor us [laughter], we're happy just to mention you. When you take the bottle cap off, it's now connected to the top of the bottle. So, someone has decided...now, I understand the reason behind it. They're saying that it's for recycling. So, when you throw your bottle away, make sure the cap goes with the bottle. But someone has sat there, and they've designed the bottles. So, when you take off the cap, it's still connected to the top of the bottle. And countless times, I'm either pouring into a cup or pouring into my mouth. And that cap is getting in the way. So, the liquid kind of goes into that cap, and it spills on me, or it spills on the table. This is an absolute design failure, a catastrophe in my eyes. That's my worst design that I've come across in real life. Do you have anything you can think of that you look at, and you're like, who designed this? SHENG-HUNG: This is such a great example because I did have similar experiences when I went to Milan Design Week last year. All the plastic bottle is, like, connected. The cap connects with the bottle. And I didn't know that it's on purpose at the very beginning. I thought, how come it's, like, connected? I want to take it out because it's easier for me to drink. And I realized it's not just this one; all of them is the same [laughs]. Yeah, that's a great example. I think, for me, design for failure adapter, for example, you know, adapter, like dongle, right? Like, we have so many different...this guy HDMI cable, the cable for iPhone, and the magnet for my Apple MacBook Pro. That's painful because you try to find, like, when you go to, like, a talk or a speech or try to present something, I think, for me, the easiest way is, like, AirPlay, right, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to connect to the projector. But in reality, you always need this HDMI cable. And this guy connects with my Mac. There's some problem. It depends on...now I always bring my adapter with me. It's just like, we have that [inaudible 28:04] like, you know, it almost, like, very frequently, if we're meeting, you have to show your screen. How can we design less physical but it's user-friendly, right? People use Mac. People use Apple, use, like, Microsoft. How do you design something like a universal adaptable to everyones, just sharing screen? This is what I need. So, I think this could be one bad design, I think, at this moment [laughs]. SAMI: Yeah, that's a great example as well, and so frustrating. And I wonder if it's, like, a money-making scheme, you know, everyone has their own chargers. And that's a way kind of they make some income as well on the side. Jared, what have you seen in the world? What's your pet peeve? What really grinds your gears? JARED: This was easy for me. It came to me straight away. Any door that has a handle that you can wrap your hand around which signifies it should be pulled that is push. It's just, I mean, what is going on there? It drives me bonkers. SHENG-HUNG: [laughs] SAMI: That is brilliant. I think it's only fair if we flip the question, right? And then, we say, what's the best thing you've seen designed, right? There must be something out there where you've gone, "Oh, that is so useful. That makes so much sense. Why haven't we done that until now?" And have you kind of...I guess this is for Sheng-Hung, like, have you got any inspiration from that sort of thing? SHENG-HUNG: I have to be honest. Like, I really feel like in the past, I'm kind of scared about, like, use your face to unlock your phone. But the more I use it, I feel like, oh my God, this is so convenient. You just look at it. I know it's a bit scary because they have all your biometric data information. I know even you protect under the regular law, but still, I feel like, yeah, it's so seamless connected. And I feel maybe the better answer is like, I feel a great design is, like, to reduce the friction between the transition of devices by devices, right? So, for me, I mean, so interface by interface. So, when I share the data on my phone, what does that mean? From phone to my computer or phone to other people, right? All the different interfaces changing. The less friction, the better. I feel seamless connected. So, you know, AirDrop, super convenient, photos, videos with people, Mac users. But what does that mean for, like, Windows users, right? And so, every platform has their own, like, spec, or criteria. And I feel if the user can feel the seamless friction between these interfaces, for me, that could be a great design solution. JARED: I love that answer. And I love that description of reducing friction. It reminds me a little bit of, I think, my favorite book on UX is by Steve Krug, which is "Don't Make Me Think." And it's just all about doing the simplest thing, reducing confusion, overcoming objections, and reducing friction. So, I really love that. I do have an answer for this one as well. It's a little bit selfish or focused on my own life. So, I have a dog. She's a Welsh Terrier called Rosie. She's just turned one. Whenever we used to go out, you've got to take water for her if it's a hot day. I always used to take a bottle, whether you could unscrew the top or not, I'm not sure, Sami, and, like, a little bowl to put that in, or you use your hands. And, invariably, she's not going to drink all of the water, so you've got waste. You throw that out. The bag gets wet, all of that. Someone has designed this really cool bottle where the top is actually the bowl. It's an all-in-one. And you press a button; the water goes into the bowl. She drinks. Whatever's left, you press the button again, turn it upright. And the water just flows back in into the rest of the bottle. It's such a simple thing. But, like you say, it just reduces that friction. Anytime a problem no longer exists, manual to automatic cars, fight me, I'm all for it. Well, that's a problem solved. That's less friction. That's beauty in the world. SAMI: Yeah, I think it's amazing. When you think about these examples, it really brings out how much of an impact design has. So, you can have the best product in the world, but if you don't get that frictionless design, or you don't get that design that's going to really bring that improvement, it's going to be difficult to make that product a success. And I think there's some, like, when I think about leaders and innovators in this kind of space, so I know you already mentioned IKEA and I think of Apple. And I don't know the answer to this, and maybe our listeners also wonder, like, how do these companies...they seem to keep getting it right. No matter what happens, they seem to set the trends, and they get their design spot-on, and they innovate in that space. How are they so successful in their design? SHENG-HUNG: I think a recent example is like, you know, like, Apple just recently launched the Vision Pro, right? The XR, the goggles. And put the demo time 30 minutes to get in-store experiences. You're booking the demo time with them, the 30 minutes. For me, I wrote an article about it. It is less about the goggle itself. It is about the whole experiences. The time you enter the store, right, and then you're waiting there, who guiding you? The Genius Bar people guiding you. You sit down. You have the prescription and your glasses that get measured, scan the QR code, and find the match [inaudible 33:35] pair of goggles that fit your [inaudible 33:37] of your face. And they put it on. They sit on the side, use the iPad to guiding you, and tell personal experiences or stories. These companies are very design-driven, vision-driven company. They really think about the whole experiences of users, right? And, for me, it's too pricey, for me, the product, obviously, right now. But I have very delightful, positive experiences because of that 30-minute demo. So, I kind of plant the seeds in my heart. Oh, if the second generation or something have discount, I would definitely want to get one for myself. Not really because...it's a great design for sure, but also, the impression I have. And I feel that really, really, like, make a difference, right? It's tiny. It's very subtle. They can, "No, we don't have, like, demo experiences." They can just purely sell the product. But I think they sell something bigger than just product. Branding user experiences, delightful experiences. And I can really feel that, and that's really powerful in the end. JARED: Do you think that that sort of level of design is limited to the companies that can afford it like the big names? Like, obviously, there is a cost dedicated to having the time and to putting the resources to that. Is it always just going to be the big players, or are there things we can do to democratize that availability for the startups, for the SMEs? SHENG-HUNG: I actually think it's about a company's culture. So, another example I would love to share is, like, when we did, like, an inspiration trip in Tokyo, and there's a very famous, like, chain bookstore called Tsutaya bookstore or Tsutaya electrics. So, to my surprise, like, yeah, it's a big bookstore, and we probably think bookstore selling books. No, they're actually selling a lifestyle. So, for example, like, if I want to buy the book around how to use a camera, right, the way they curate it, it's like, yeah, we do have the books around camera, but also, we'll put the real camera, like, near the book. So, they curate the whole experiences. You flip the book. Oh, this is so cool. Thanks, I want to try it. You probably, in the end, you got both. So, very interesting and also very human-centered, like, retail experiences. Why did I say culture? Because when I entered the store, I asked for one book I was looking for. The staff came to me, and she bring two books to me. One is the book I want, unpack. And one is the book...it's the same book, but without the plastic cover. It's brand new. And why she brought two books to me because if I want to buy this book, I not only read inside, but also, I can just get the new one with me to check out. And this is so subtle, right? Because they're not just bringing you, like, the sample. They also bring the final product with you. So, I feel that kind of culture is, like, very strong, customer-centered, think about your needs, think about your next step. So, they kind of plan ahead, and this is so strong message to me. Oh my God, this is such a great design culture, or at least a human-centered culture to think about my needs, my decision-making process. So, I feel connected with that, and I feel like, yes, they have money, but also, like, they really cultivate that culture within the...not just...they also send a message to their customers. SAMI: I feel like, Sheng-Hung, we could speak to you for hours. I mean, you are opening my world and my eyes to a different world of design. I've got one final question for you before we wrap up that I wanted to cover. I've seen from your website, like, you've personally designed products. So, out of all the products you've either designed yourself or you've been involved with, what would you say, and could you describe for us your favorite product that you've designed yourself? SHENG-HUNG: I think my favorite product is, like, I help and re-design, like, Shanghai Library Innovation Space that, for me, is OMG. Oh my God. It's crazy. Like, one single team, my side project and collaborate with the full staff, librarian, the leadership team. What is powerful is, like, library for them in Shanghai, it's a local hub to connect the community and also to teach, to learn for the younger generation how to use the space. For sure, most people use that space for, like, self-studying, you know, activity and all this stuff. But, for me, like, it's so impactful because every single change that means a lot of impact because it's a public space. And also, it's really, really powerful. Like, you think about the decision-making process. You have to think about feasibility, viability, and also desirability, all things to connect together. And it's really hard, not easy process. It took me about a year-long project. And I'm really happy because, in the end, it's really from sketches, concept, prototyping models, all the way they rebuild, modify the design, integrated. And now the new library they build on another area of Shanghai is really based on this model and framework. I'm very happy, and I also feel like, yeah, design can make a positive impact. It's not like a concept. It's real. And it's nice. It's painful, but it's really satisfying, yeah [laughs]. SAMI: That's really cool when you get to a point where you've done something, and then you see people using what you've designed and, like, enjoying that space and benefiting from all that hard work that you've put into. I have to thank you so much for joining us and giving us time today on the Giant Robots On Tour Series of the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots podcast. Our listeners don't know, but you've had about two hours of sleep. SHENG-HUNG: [laughs] Yeah. SAMI: So, it's probably time for you to get back into bed yourself. But that is your dedication to us. It's been an incredible episode and an incredible chat. I finally understand why Jared does not like doors. I myself, you will understand if you see me in the street and I'm tearing a bottle cap off of a bottle, you'll understand why. And we need to sort Sheng-Hung out with more adapters with just a single charger for all his devices. If people want to get a hold of you, Sheng-Hung, where's the best place they can reach out after listening to this podcast? SHENG-HUNG: Yeah, definitely, you can reach out through my personal website portfolio. Yeah, shenghunglee.com. And I'm happy to respond and discuss about design-related topic. Thanks for having me on this podcast. It's very exciting, and hope we can create all the great stuff for our society. SAMI: Pleasure. There's always a challenge I give to my listeners at the end, and it normally is just please hit that subscribe button. Jared has promised me that he will do a shoey if we can double our subscribers by the end of the series. If you don't know what a shoey is, my only advice to you is do not Google it because you do not want to know. You can find notes and a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have any questions or comments, you can email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See ya. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

Olá, pessoal! Mais uma das lives da nossa Semana do UX Decodificado. Neste evento especial, vamos bater um papo com Rafael Frota trazendo diversas referências e recomendações de livros para enriquecer ainda mais seu conhecimento em UX. "UX Decodificado" foi escrito para fornecer um guia completo e prático sobre UX, destinado a novos designers, profissionais em transição, gestores, desenvolvedores e inovadores. O objetivo é disseminar conhecimentos valiosos, promover uma cultura de design centrada no usuário e ajudar profissionais a aplicarem práticas de UX de forma eficaz em seus projetos e carreiras. Já comprou o nosso livro "UX Decodificado"? Se você é um designer em busca de aprimorar suas habilidades em UX, ou um profissional de outra área interessado em migrar para o design de experiência, este livro é para você. Adquira já o seu exemplar e leve sua carreira para o próximo nível! Edição Física (Site da brauer) Amazon Brasil: https://amzn.to/3Wv4zVb (Versão Digital em português) Amazon Espanha: Compre agora! (Versão Digital em português) Amazon UK: Compre Agora! (Versão Digital em português) Livros Recomendados "Don't Make Me Think" de Steve Krug https://amzn.to/4fxgTNF Um guia clássico para a usabilidade de websites e produtos digitais. "The Design of Everyday Things" de Don Norman https://amzn.to/3WMQXGp Uma leitura fundamental para entender os princípios do design centrado no usuário. "About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design" de Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin e Christopher Noessel https://amzn.to/3WN7FoX Um manual completo sobre design de interação e usabilidade. "Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience" de Jeff Gothelf e Josh Seiden https://amzn.to/3A5PNgn Um guia prático para integrar UX e métodos Lean em projetos de design. "Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences" de Stephen Anderson https://amzn.to/46smPTT Foca em como criar designs que engajem e encantem os usuários. Profissionais Referência Don Norman Steve Krug Jeff Gothelf Alan Cooper Tem varios brasileiros citados no livro. Recomendo buscar. Alem claro dos que tem passado por aqui no bom dia ux e nesta semana. Sobre carreira: com ebooks Joe Natoli https://givegoodux.com/books/ Artiom Dashinsky https://dashinsky.com/ Álvaro Souza https://www.aprenderux.com.br/ Arquitetura de informacao Abbey covert e sua comunidade The Sensemakers Club https://www.thesensemakersclub.com/ Mercado, lideranca e metricas Jared Spool e a comunidade Leaders of Awesomeness Inerface, interacao e UI FeUX www.youtube.com/@feuxdesign Comunidades Jovens uxui Vagas ux https://vagasux.com.br/ Sites Recomendados para Aprender Sobre UX Nielsen Norman Group (NNG) nngroup.com Oferece uma vasta gama de artigos, relatórios e vídeos sobre pesquisa e prática de usabilidade e UX. É uma das fontes mais respeitadas no campo. Smashing Magazine smashingmagazine.com Publica artigos detalhados, tutoriais e recursos sobre design, desenvolvimento web, e UX. A List Apart alistapart.com Foca em padrões web, design e desenvolvimento, oferecendo artigos de alta qualidade sobre UX e UI. UX Design.cc uxdesign.cc Uma plataforma que reúne artigos, tutoriais, e links úteis sobre design de experiência do usuário. Interaction Design Foundation interaction-design.org Oferece cursos online, artigos e uma comunidade ativa para quem deseja aprender mais sobre UX. UX Matters uxmatters.com Publica artigos e colunas de especialistas em UX sobre uma ampla variedade de tópicos relacionados ao design de experiência do usuário. Usability.gov usability.gov Mantido pelo governo dos EUA, oferece recursos, guias e melhores práticas para criar interfaces centradas no usuário. Boxes and Arrows boxesandarrows.com Uma revista online que discute design de interação, arquitetura da informação e design centrado no usuário. UX Booth uxbooth.com Um blog colaborativo que cobre diversos aspectos do design de experiência do usuário. Medium – UX Collective uxdesign.cc Uma coleção de artigos escritos por profissionais de UX sobre tendências, práticas e estudos de caso. Esses livros, sites e profissionais são altamente recomendados para qualquer pessoa interessada em aprofundar seus conhecimentos em UX. Eles fornecem uma base sólida e insights valiosos que complementam os ensinamentos do livro "UX Decodificado". Adquira já o seu exemplar e leve sua carreira para o próximo nível! https://lnkd.in/dTU9S_Da

Steven Forth is Ibbaka's Co-Founder, CEO, and Partner. Ibbaka is a strategic pricing advisory firm. He was CEO of LeveragePoint Innovations Inc., a SaaS business. In this episode, Steven explains how AI can significantly enhance software customization and pricing, enabling more precise value delivery for each customer. He emphasizes that while AI introduces new capabilities, it does not fundamentally change the core principles of pricing.    Why you have to check out today's podcast: Dive deep into the comparison between AI and the transformative impact of SaaS, providing valuable insights into the future of software pricing and delivery Understand value models and how AI can optimize pricing strategies Explore how AI can enable highly customized software configurations and pricing, making it easier to deliver and capture value tailored to individual customers   "Before they invest a lot of time and effort in developing or pricing their own AI, find out what their customers are already doing and how they're thinking about the problems." - Steven Forth   Topics Covered: 00:47 - Skepticism as well as optimism regarding AI and addressing the hype surrounding AI 04:15 - Exploring how AI might impact software pricing compared to the changes brought about by cloud-based SaaS. 07:05 - The way AI can optimize software configurations and pricing based on individual value drivers for each customer 10:44 - Discussing how SaaS fundamentally changed software pricing compared to AI 14:11 - How AI, while it enhances capabilities and user experiences, does not fundamentally change the underlying principles of pricing 16:31 - What is a value model? 18:15 - Pricing being tied more closely to value with the rise of AI 23:27 - Steven's best pricing advice   Key Takeaways: "The underlying ways that we think about pricing have not changed because of generative AI and will not change, but some of them we'll be able to execute on much, much more effectively." - Steven Forth "I think of pricing not as being something that is data-driven, but something that is model-driven." - Steven Forth "AI is changing how we build, deliver, and experience the functionality that software and data can bring. But as it does that, it also opens new ways for us to think about the pricing of the applications and the data." - Steven Forth   People/Resources Mentioned: Pros: https://pros.com Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ph/Don Norman: https://www.nngroup.com/people/don-norman/ Jacob Nielsen: https://www.nngroup.com/people/don-norman/ Totogi: https://www.totogi.com McKinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com Tom Nagle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-tom-nagle-2bb2288/ Zilliant: https://zilliant.com Pricefx: https://www.pricefx.com Vendavo: https://www.vendavo.com Tomasz Tunguz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasztunguz/   Connect with Steven Forth: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth/ Email: steven@ibbaka.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com  

Jay and Andrew talk about the Remarkable tablet and effective idea dumping. Then they both describe their morning meetings and talk about how you inspire people with your company culture ... without reducing it to a bunch of corporate gobbledegook. Books discussed:Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.

"When I lay in bed at night as a young, hungry, naive entrepreneur, I could barely contain my joy at the thought of filing sales tax forms with a dozen states every month."—Andrew on the joy of state taxes, one of a few subjects he and Jay cover in this week's episode. Mostly, they talk about design. Good, intuitive design that takes into account the way real people think and work. And bad, terrible design that sometimes literally leads to death.Book mentioned:The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.

Join us for a profound conversation with Don Norman, a pioneer in user experience and human-centered design. In this episode, Don unpacks the essence of staying curious throughout life, rethinks traditional design principles in favor of humanity-centered approaches, and examines the evolving role of AI in design. Episode website  Hosts: Jason Giles, Vice President of Design at UserTesting Lija Hogan, Principal for Experience Research Strategy at UserTesting Nathan Isaacs, Senior Manager for Content Production at UserTesting Guest: Don Norman, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, and former Vice President of Apple In This Episode, You Will Learn: Lifelong Learning: Don Norman shares his personal journey and the importance of lifelong learning, detailing how he continuously adapts and acquires new skills to stay relevant and effective. Humanity-Centered Design: Norman critiques the traditional design paradigms that often focus on corporate profits at the expense of environmental and societal well-being. He advocates for a shift towards designs that consider their impact on society and the environment. The Role of AI in Design: Explore the dual-edged sword of AI in the design industry. Don discusses the powerful capabilities and potential risks of AI, urging a balanced approach that includes ethical considerations to harness AI for societal benefits. Advice for Designers: Norman provides actionable advice for designers to navigate their careers, emphasizing the need for ethical practice, continuous improvement, and the integration of human values into design processes. Featured Quote: "Don't work on just any technology, work on new technology that is humane, that is caring, and that makes a real difference." Episode links:  Don Norman Design Award - Learn more about how to participate or contribute. Books by Don Norman - Discover more of his works on design and human-focused practices. Subscribe and Share: Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to our podcast for more insights from leaders in user experience and design. Don't forget to rate us and share the episode with others who might find it valuable! Stay in touch: Feedback: podcast@usertesting.com Twitter: @UserTesting Website: www.usertesting.com/resources/podcast

Andrew and Jay talk about whether they would ever purchase housing for out-of-town workers or clients, why most problems are math problems, how to inculcate company culture in remote workers, why you shouldn't hire too quickly, slips vs mistakes, design that you shouldn't notice, "Swiss cheese problems", and thoughtless outsourcing. In other words, there's plenty to chew on in this episode of Lean Built.Book mentioned:The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.Article mentioned:"Boeing and the Dark Age of American Manufacturing" by Jerry Useem.

AI is changing faster than we can sometimes process and will likely do so for a while. The recent tech layoffs have also not spared UX professionals, adding to the uncertainty about our future roles in this rapidly changing environment. While there is still much we don't know about AI, Don Norman, co-founder of NN/g, and Sarah Gibbons, VP at NN/g, share their insights on the future roles of designers, encouraging professionals to think big in the wake of AI's advancements. Related NN/g Articles & Training Courses Generative UI and Outcome-Oriented Design AI as a UX Assistant The 4 Degrees of Anthropomorphism of Generative AI AI Chat Is Not (Always) the Answer AI-Powered Tools for UX Research: Issues and Limitations Prompt Structure in Conversations with Generative AI Sycophancy in Generative-AI Chatbots  New Course: Practical AI for UX Professionals Other Related Content ⁠Don Norman's Website⁠ Chapters 0:00-1:12 - Intro 1:13-18:18 - What will design's role be as AI expands? 18:18-23:15 - What is going to stay the same as AI expands? 23:16-end - Rapid Fire Questions 

SummaryIn this conversation, Chase from Utah State University discusses the Outdoor Product Design and Development Program. The program offers a unique curriculum that focuses on designing and developing outdoor products. Students have the opportunity to specialize in different areas such as performance apparel, soft goods accessories, or equipment. The program cultivates a maker's mindset by encouraging curiosity and creativity. The curriculum includes classes on sketching, digital design, prototyping, and more. The program also addresses sustainability and incorporates sustainable practices into the curriculum. In this conversation, Chase shares insights about senior projects and standout projects from students, the final show and exhibit, the cost of tuition, job placements, the impact of the program on gear, the Outdoor Recreation Archive, and the Highlander Podcast.TakeawaysThe senior projects and standout projects from students showcase their creativity and problem-solving skills.The final show and exhibit provide an opportunity for the public to see the students' work and for companies to find new talent.Job placements for graduates of the program are diverse, with opportunities in both outdoor and non-outdoor industries.The Outdoor Recreation Archive is a valuable resource for exploring the history of outdoor gear and brands.The Highlander Podcast features conversations with gear pioneers and provides insights into the outdoor industry.Books mentioned: Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, The Design Of Everyday Things: Norman, Don Norman , Design for a Better World: Meaningful, Sustainable, Humanity Centered, Don Norman, The Future of the Responsible Company: What We've Learned from Patagonia's First 50 Years2024 Senior ExhibitOutdoor Recreation Archive Online File SearchUSU Outdoor Product Design and DevelopmentFollow @usuoutdoorproduct on Instagram Follow @OutdoorRecArchive on InstagramHighlander PodcastChapters00:00- Introduction and Background02:27- Overview of the Outdoor Product Design and Development Program06:09- Cultivating a Maker's Mindset11:22- Curriculum and Classes22:36- Staying Ahead of the Curve31:05- Addressing Sustainability36:08- Recommended Books39:15- Senior Projects and Standout Projects42:29- Final Show and Exhibit44:11- Cost of Tuition46:36- Job Placements52:03- Impact of the Program on GearFind Us on Social Media

Has human behaviour pushed our world to the edge, especially the mistaken belief that the earth's resources are infinite? And can a shift in human behaviour rescue us? The challenges we face, from collapsing social structures to the climate crisis, have been centuries in the making. It is immensely critical that we take immediate and decisive actions; we must transform ourselves to improve our circumstances. In his new book “Design for a Better World: Meaningful, Sustainable, Humanity Centered” Don Norman offers an insightful analysis of our missteps and provides a clear remedy for making things better. The book suggests that the pivotal factor for change lies in human behaviour. The book explores this through three main themes: meaning, sustainability, and humanity-centeredness. In this episode of Bridging the Gaps, I speak with professor Don Norman. We dig deep on these three themes and explore the ideas that a meaningful quality of life, rather than mere monetary gain, restructuring our lifestyles to enhance environmental protection, and adopting an inclusive approach that encompasses all of humanity, can empower us to address the challenges confronting us. Don Norman is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science and Psychology and founding director of the Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego. Business Week has named Norman one of the world's most influential designers. He was an Apple Vice President, has been an advisor and board member for numerous companies, and has three honorary degrees. His numerous books have been translated into over 20 languages including “The Design of Everyday Things” and “Living with Complexity”. We start off by examining the pervasive artificiality surrounding us. Misplaced and disjointed elements, such as non-native plants, high density concrete structures and other artefacts, contribute to environments saturated with artificial constructs. Furthermore, we delve into how our metrics of success are also influenced by this artificiality. We measure our success by using metrics that don't encompass what really matters. This artificiality has consequently led to an unsustainable sociotechnical system. We touch upon the ramifications of distorted capitalism before delving deeply into the central themes of the book: meaning, sustainability, and humanity-centeredness. Exploring the human quest for significance, we discuss why a sense of meaning is essential for every aspect of our existence. Addressing sustainability, we discuss how to rectify the harm inflicted upon the ecosystem. Finally, we discuss a humanity-centered approach to crafting artefacts and lifestyles that offers a pathway to rectify our current predicament. This discussion has been both enlightening and invigorating. Complement this discussion with “Philosophy of Technology” with Professor Peter-Paul Verbeek available at: https://www.bridgingthegaps.ie/2021/01/philosophy-of-technology-with-professor-peter-paul-verbeek/ And then listen to “The Good-Enough Life” with Dr Avram Alpert available at: https://www.bridgingthegaps.ie/2023/09/the-good-enough-life-with-dr-avram-alpert/

As an interlude to the Sinister series, Darren shares his perspectives on the recent attacks being levied on Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen. He also shares a history of Nielsen and Norman's many contributions to the discipline, provides recommendations on how to process the accusations, and pays homage to several UX pioneers and early practitioners.Check out the new World of UX website at https://www.worldoux.com. Visit the UX Uncensored blog at https://uxuncensored.medium.com.#ux#podcasts#cxofmradio#cxofm#realuxtalk#worldofux#worldoux#sinisterUX 

Peut-on oublier de concevoir pour plus de 20% de la population française ?  En 2019, les plus de 65 ans en France représentent déjà 1 personne sur 5, et pourtant, nombre de produits et services qui leur sont destinés sont mal pensés et mal conçus. Les personnes âgées ne sont-elles que des personnes diminuées ? L'approche “design senior” est-elle soumise à des biais âgistes ? Quelles sont les bonnes pratiques de design à mettre en œuvre pour concevoir pour les senior•es ? Dans ce premier épisode d'un cycle de 2, nous évoquons ces points et tentons de répondre à ces questions en compagnie de nos invité•es : Eva Hardy, designeuse et cofondatrice du studio Stimuli. Lisa Pottier, chercheuse en design et designeuse chez Alogia Groupe, groupe spécialiste dans le diagnostic et l'adaptation du domicile pour les personnes âgées. Antoine Gérard, sociologue et UX researcher, fondateur de Bistro Bertha. Paul Labeau, chef de projet prospective et innovation chez Énéal, opérateur d‘Epahd et de résidences autonomie. Au sommaire de cet épisode : Chapitre 1 • Nous nous attachons à mieux définir cette catégorie de la population et la structure économique qui lui est attachée. Chapitre 2 • Au travers d'exemples concrets, nous explorons le cadre à donner à la démarche design pour créer des produits et services destinés aux senior•es, les biais possibles et comment les éviter. Chapitre 3 • Nous envisageons concrètement les enjeux éthiques attachés à la démarche du design pour les senior•es et nous tentons d'apporter une réponse à la question initiale de Don Norman : comment repenser la désirabilité des produits et services destinés aux senior•es ? Cet épisode a été réalisé par Nicolas Guerin et Charline Bénac. Les voix-off sont de Zoé Pasquier.

Step behind the doors of design with this episode, where we discuss the often-overlooked world of door design. Delve into the insights of Don Norman, who challenges the notion that user errors are solely the user's fault. Join us for a practical exploration of design philosophy in the everyday object we interact with countless times – doors.

Durant une conférence à Oslo, Don Norman a partagé 6 conseils pour grandir en tant que designer pour les années à venir...

“A brilliant solution to the wrong problem can be worse than no solution at all: solve the correct problem” - Don Norman.  Don Norman was Apple's first user experience architect and is revered for his expertise in design, usability engineering, and cognitive science.  Listen to this episode to learn the most important lessons from his best known book: Design of Everyday Things.  You will learn:  How to use the 5 why process to understand what the problem really is  Why human error doesn't really exist  Why marketing and product development can be warring factions Join our January workshop & get Early Bird pricing: Design 2024 to be Your Best Year Yet ---  Join the Tech for Non-Techies membership and succeed in the Digital Age.  Tech for Non-Techies clients  Reach senior leadership positions in Big Tech firms Lead digital transformation in established businesses Create tech businesses as non-technical founders Pivot into careers in venture capital We love hearing from our readers and listeners. So if you have questions about the content or working with us, just get in touch on info@techfornontechies.co   Say hi to Sophia on Twitter and follow her on LinkedIn. Following us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok will make you smarter. 

Don Norman has been a professor, industry executive, consultant, keynote speaker, and author. He’s worked in electrical engineering, cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, and design. He’s the author of…

How to design beyond the typical framework, and thus, acquire expertise in the entire process of building a product, and even your life on creating an all-humanity-centered product. We had a thought-provoking conversation with Don Norman, an American researcher, professor, co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group, and the world-renowned author of the bestseller "Design of Everyday Things", which is a must-read for everyone who is interested in design, and his newest book "Design for the better world" was just published. He signifies a totally different approach to design, making real endeavours in the innovation of products. In this rich exploration, we break down the meaning of UX design and how it contributes to creating a better world. We unpack the journey of a UX designer, demystifying the process and shedding light on how the philosophy of user experience design extends beyond the realm of product design. Join us as we engage with Don Norman, and take a closer look at his latest insights on 'Design for a Better World'. Get ready to expand your understanding of user experience and challenge your perception of what UX design truly entails. Timecodes: 01:17 Robots (AI) will replace the designers? 02:57 A competition between AI and people's humans 03:19 What is designed for a better world and how did you achieve this concept? 07:55 Interaction between people, technology, and the world 08:45 The difference between humanity central design and design thinking? 09:49 Don Norman's approach to the CEO place 10:54 The Psychology of Everyday Things 11:12 The academics don't understand how the real world works. 14:55 Change an approach to design education 18:48 The mindset of the educators If you found this audio valuable, please don't forget to like, subscribe, and share it with your friends and colleagues! You may also watch this episode on Youtube by following this link: https://youtu.be/92apECwSbvo Stay tuned for more insightful interviews and useful content on creating digital healthcare products from concept to market success. Follow us on Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Linkupst/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/linkupst LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linkup-studio/mycompany/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/linkupst/ Visit us: Website: https://linkupst.com/ Contact us: info@linkupst.com

We covered:How to use AI in your UX process.What are the different opportunities for UX writers and designers with the rise of AI products.What other events in history were similar to the AI revolution.trategies for integrating AI into user research and testing.The impact of AI on user interface design trends.Ethical considerations in AI-driven design choices.Predicting user behavior with machine learning and its effects on UX.The role of personalization in UX as powered by AI algorithms.Balancing human-centric design with AI automation.The future of UX professions in the age of AI advancements. For more about UX and AI take our free AI for UX courseFollow Jakob's work here

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I'm Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we're here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs. Today, I’m excited to have Jennifer Ryan at Blackline join us. Jennifer, I’d love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience. Jennifer Ryan: Absolutely. My name is Jennifer Ryan. I’m the director of global sales enablement here at Blackline. I went the long way around to find my way to enablement. When I was a solutions consultant, I was a customer success manager. I’ve done IT support, I’ve done customer training. I’ve done all of these things, and my senior VP of sales came up to me and he says, you keep circling the barrel, but until you understand sales, you can’t understand business, so you have two choices. You can go into sales enablement, or you can go into sales. I chose sales enablement. SS: I love that. Now, you also describe yourself as someone who specializes in navigating fear and leaning into trying new things, as you just alluded to in your introduction with all of the various experiences that you’ve had throughout your career journey. How have you applied this mindset now to your role in enablement? JR: When we think about enablement, the whole goal, whether we’re selling widgets or we’re selling software, we are asking people to change. When we ask others to change, that means that there’s something in us that has to change. As human beings, we are emotionally driven. Change is very difficult for us. It’s always steeped in the fear of the unknown. I use this idea behind being experimental, being okay with trying something, and failing because the magic is in the quote-unquote failure. The idea that failure is negativity is horrible, it’s where all of the magic comes from. Think about science. How many things were discovered by accident because someone just tried something and what was a failure for one thing became something else? I apply this mindset to the folks in enablement that while you might be afraid to try something new, that while you might be resistant, there is absolutely nothing that you should be afraid of and just trying. SS: I love that mindset. Now, that all being said, the sales environment has undergone a lot of change in the last few years, and change can cause fear for some folks. What are some of the common challenges that can arise from giving into fear? JR: What I see most often that comes out of that fear mindset, and if we even think about all of the information that’s come out of Gartner and this idea behind buyer enablement, this idea that it’s not so much about us as the salespeople, but more about what the buyer knows about themselves. There’s a lot of fear of loss of control in the sales cycle. There’s this idea that historically we’ve gone in discovery and we’ve peppered questions and now it’s, how do we coach a buyer into answering those questions for themselves that we lead them instead of tell them? That’s scary because you don’t know what’s coming. You have to be agile and you have to use your active listening skills. Those are not muscles that we always flex. Some are very good at it, but others struggle. When we struggle and then there’s the looming quota, those are all very fear-inducing instances in sales. SS: I love that. What are some of your best practices to help sellers overcome fear though, through enablement efforts? JR: My favorite practice to alleviate fear is humor. When you’re laughing, our bodies release serotonin, and dopamine in our brains. It’s almost like we’re drug addicts if you will. I don’t mean to use that term loosely, but we are subject to that release in our brains, and when we associate that with something new, something that we’ve learned, we have a Pavlovian response to learning. With laughter, you release defenses. You get people to just relax. They lower their shoulders, their facial muscles release, and they’re with you. When people are with you and they feel like you are meeting them where they are, the fear goes away because you’re not lording over them. I use humor more than anything else in enablement and it has served me well for the many years I’ve been doing it. SS: I think you’re spot on. Humor does alleviate a lot of that held in tension. Beyond that, the learning process can play a big role, I think, as well in helping sellers navigate fear because then it is no longer the unknown. It also helps to build a lot of confidence amongst your sales teams. I know one of your areas of expertise is in multimedia learning. How can a multimedia approach to learning help sellers develop confidence? JR: I don’t know if you’ve ever read the books by Don Norman, and if you haven’t, do yourself a favor, they’re phenomenal, but Don talks about how cognitive learning by itself, that people only absorb so much information. If we couple new learning with an emotional response, if we associate emotion with it, then not only are people Viscerally responding to what’s happening, but they are also engaging a part of their brain that creates a reflective approach in the future. That means that they can recall that learning again in the future. When you think about multimedia learning, I always lean into it. I’m going to age myself now, but when I was a kid, we had Schoolhouse Rock. At my age, I can still recite the preamble to the Declaration of Independence because I know it in a song. If you think about when someone tells you something new, and then you also see a picture of it. These things combined create an environment for learning. We’re engaging people at different places instead of just a singular point of bringing learning to new people in whatever form that takes. My other favorite is storytelling. If I tell you a silly story with a point that makes a correlation between something that you don’t know, that correlation makes the learning. SS: I love how you’re able to draw that correlation for your learners. If we can double-click into this a little bit, what are some of the key components of an effective multimedia learning experience? JR: One of my favorite things to look at is called sensory motor synchronization. There’s been a lot of research done on it, but basically, the research started in babies. If we can do something that aligns with the beat of a baby’s heart, or the beat of the intake and outtake of their breath, then we align to the very basics of these babies as humans. It also works with folks who are further in the ending stages of their life. I spent the early part of my career studying music therapy. I used to work in an Alzheimer’s unit and that’s where I started to align with that idea of the power of music, the power of the beat, and how we can reach people that the brain has literally made them unreachable for us. One of the key components that I use is helping people align learning with that beat. Think about when you’re looking at a PowerPoint and someone has multiple lines and if you put a little music behind it and it comes out synchronized to that beat, that effect draws people’s attention, people’s attention and they’re like, oh, I loved that part. Look at how that exactly went with that beat. Things like that are my favorite things to do in training. I’ll put up a picture that elicits that awe factor, like a picture of a kitten, and I’ll ask them, how does this make you feel? People will respond, oh, it’s just so sweet, or oh, look at that kitten. Then behind it, I’ll play the Jaws theme. Now, all of a sudden, this sweet little kitten’s eyes look like it’s coming for me! That idea that we can change the feeling, we can change the scenario of something by combining pictures with stories, and with music, we can control how people come to the table and how they’re going to ingest what we have to offer for them. SS: That was quite the visualization, I have to say. Last question for you, Jennifer. What is one thing that you’re planning to try in your enablement programs this year? What is one thing that you’d recommend our audience try in their programs that maybe they haven’t tried before? JR: This year we are actually rolling out what we’re calling Blackline TV. What we found is that our learners were giving us a lot of feedback that, we get too much email, and our LMS sends out email notifications. Our learning development team from HR sends out emails. We send out email announcements. There are emails about new meetings that are coming. We had to find a different way to reach people in a way that they would again be open to learning something new. Blackline TV gives us this idea, think about the very best movie trailer you’ve ever seen. As soon as it’s done, you think, where’s my $20, I can’t wait to see that movie. Blackline TV is a snippet of different parts of the business. We didn’t just limit it to enablement functions, but we figured that this collaboration, this learning opportunity around the entire business would create not only collaboration between different teams but also reinforces that we are one company as a whole, not separate groups that happen to be part of the same quote unquote company family. That is our big one this year is BlacklineTV. I would really recommend finding something that is off the beaten path. Something that people haven’t seen before. The beautiful part about this experimental mindset is that just try it. What’s the worst that could happen? Did it fall apart? Okay, well then you try something else. Try quickly, fail quickly, and iterate quickly. SS: I love that advice. Thank you so much, Jennifer, for joining us today. I learned a lot. JR: Absolutely. My pleasure. SS: To our audience, thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there's something you'd like to share or a topic you'd like to learn more about, please let us know. We'd love to hear from you.

Rewind! This is a re-release of Episode 22 of the Design30 Podcast. As one of the most popular episodes of the podcast, I hope you enjoy going back and learing about the Double Diamond Model and how to use it to improve your Creativity and Design skills.|Show Notes:Huberman Lab Podcast: https://hubermanlab.com/the-science-of-creativity-and-how-to-enhance-creative-innovation/The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman: https://a.co/d/3ofBo2a|You can find me on Medium now too! (https://medium.com/@design30)Become a free subscriber to access and read all of my Substack articles (subscribe here: https://design30.substack.com)Subscribe to the Design30 YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi2eKOkU66wUXSs1LCc7Swg|"Design more. Despair Less." Trademark of Design30 LLC.Copyright 2023 Design30 LLC.

Show notes: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/bonus-episode-with-don-norman-panel In this special bonus episode, renowned scholar and author Don Norman (The Design of Everyday Things, Design for a Better World) leads a discussion with recognized design leaders about how design can and should play a role in solving the biggest challenges of humanity today. This conversation was recorded at a live online event August 17, 2023 produced by the UX Design Institute. Panelists who participated in the conversation with Don Norman include Brenda Laurel (researcher, writer, and consultant), Irene Au (Design partner at Khosla Ventures and former Design Better guest), and our own Aarron Walter. Gareth Dunlop is the MC of the event.In this hour-long conversation the panelists discuss: The role of design in understanding and navigating our current socio-economic challenges How to think about design and UX as humanity-centered versus human-centered How to harness the power of design in creating a better future for all of us Learn more about the UX Design Institute, the gold standard in UX education at: https://www.uxdesigninstitute.com/ Get Don Norman's new book Designing for a Better World at: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262047951/design-for-a-better-world/

Don Norman emphasizes the importance of humanity-centered design, which considers the impact of design on the environment, society, and all living things. He discusses the potential of artificial intelligence and the need for collaboration and diverse perspectives in design. Don also highlights the success of reversing the ozone hole issue and the potential for finding solutions to other environmental challenges.Guy Kawasaki is on a mission to make you remarkable. His Remarkable People podcast features interviews with remarkable people such as Jane Goodall,  Marc Benioff, Woz, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Bob Cialdini. Every episode will make you more remarkable.With his decades of experience in Silicon Valley as a Venture Capitalist and advisor to the top entrepreneurs in the world, Guy's questions come from a place of curiosity and passion for technology, start-ups, entrepreneurship, and marketing. If you love society and culture, documentaries, and business podcasts, take a second to follow Remarkable People.Listeners of the Remarkable People podcast will learn from some of the most successful people in the world with practical tips and inspiring stories that will help you be more remarkable.Episodes of Remarkable People organized by topic: https://bit.ly/rptopologyListen to Remarkable People here:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/guy-kawasakis-remarkable-people/id1483081827Like this show? Please leave us a review -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!Thank you for your support; it helps the show!

Welcome to this extraordinary episode of Nodes of Design. Today, we have the rare privilege of hosting the venerable Don Norman, a luminary in the design world whose contributions have paved the way for countless others. A visionary, an author, a researcher, an educator, a cognitive scientist and a champion of human-centred design. Don Norman is a legend in UX design. Since the 1960s, he has been at the forefront of human-computer interaction and human-centred design; His group coined the term "User Experience" while working as vice president of the Advanced Technology Group at Apple in the 1980s. Don's legendary work has transformed the fields of cognitive science and usability engineering; he has a long legacy in academia, for example, at the University of California, San Diego, where he is a professor and head of the UCSD Design Lab. He co-founded the Nielsen Norman Group, a leading consultancy on User Experience. He is renowned globally for his book, 'The Design of Everyday Things', which continues to influence and inspire designers worldwide to focus on users in their work. Throughout his extensive career, Don has always emphasized the importance of design thinking and the role of design in improving the human experience. His theories and methods have defined and revolutionized the user-centred design approach.  Don discusses his newest book, 'Design for a Better World'. This book explores design's critical role in addressing some of the world's most pressing issues, from climate change and social inequality to global poverty. We'll be delving into how designers can contribute to solving these grand challenges and how cross-collaboration with scientists, policymakers, and politicians can lead to better products and services. We'll also discuss the future of design in an age where AI is increasingly becoming a co-pilot in our design process. Lastly, for all our budding designers out there, Don will be sharing advice on how to foster an environmentally conscious design mindset, a skill that is increasingly important in our changing world. This episode is a deep dive into the mind of one of the most influential figures in design, brimming with wisdom and insight. It's a must-listen for anyone passionate about design and those who wish to understand how design can contribute to a better world. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thank you for listening to this episode of Nodes of Design. We hope you enjoy the Nodes of Design Podcast on your favourite podcast platforms- Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and many more. If this episode helped you understand and learn something new, please share and join the knowledge-sharing community #Spreadknowledge. This podcast aims to make design education accessible to all. Nodes of Design is a non-profit and self-sponsored initiative by Tejj.

For the season one finale, Robb and Josh welcome legendary researcher, professor, and author Don Norman. His book "The Design of Everyday Things" helped define the parameters of human centered design, and his new book "Design for a Better World: Meaningful, Sustainable, Humanity Centered" expands the process to account for the global ecosystem our designs call home. Don shares powerful insights into the ways design and technology continue to shape our lives, including ideas on the fundamental shortcomings of the term "artificial intelligence." Intro music, "Nitro Reign" by Elias Earl

‍(If you DO want to work with Studio8E8, be sure to mention this podcast/ episode!)Reach out to Studio8E8 here: https://s8e8.com/affiliates/tdm?utm_source=tdm&utm_medium=affiliate&wc_clear=true‍‍Hey what's up guys? In this Monday Morning Marketing episode, I'm joined by our good friend, and website expert, Joshua Scott. Joshua breaks down his four essential website attributes that contribute to a seamless and engaging patient experience. From intuitive navigation and captivating visuals, to personalized content and convenient appointment booking systems, we explore how these elements can elevate your online presence and attract more patients to your practice. We also discuss the rising concern for ADA(American Disabilities Act) compliance, and how you can stay in the clear if this is a concern in your area!‍Join our conversation for actionable tips, trends, and must-haves to enhance your dental website's user experience and drive success in the digital realm!‍You can reach out to Joshua Scott here:Website: https://s8e8.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshuascott/Email: joshua@s8e8.com‍Other Mentions and Links:‍SwellGoogle Ad WordsLocalMedNext HealthPractice by NumbersChatGPTDon NormanModentoHIPAA - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability ActBirdseyeADA - American Disabilities ActADA Compliance Company - Equally.aiDentistry IQ‍‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Marketing, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey, Josh, so talk to us about websites. How can we utilize this, or what advice or suggestions or methods can you give us that will help actually attract new patients through our website? Joshua: Hey, Michael, always great to be back for another mm m. TripleM, mq, I dunno what you call it, Michael: m squared Joshua: times three m and m and m Monday morning Marketing.Uh, but no, I, I wanted to kind of come at this, uh, from a little bit of a different conversation that we've been having with our clients lately. They actually started as a conversation with our team. It actually kind of started post covid conversation with the team. Some of the trends we were seeing and then has, Build out with our client base, but it's really a conversation behind your website's UX design.And what that means is a user experience design. And so when you get into kind of agency and design world, especially with, with digital products, mobile products, you're gonna hear people talk about the ux, like, what's the UX like? Or, I really enjoy the ux and what that means is, You're not just putting something out there for function, you're putting something out there that's designed with the user in mind.So I thought we would talk about that for a little bit. Some areas we're seeing that and then actually kind of hit at the end, maybe some ADA compliance that just kind of seems to be at odds with that. But we can talk through it a little bit. Okay, man. Yeah, let's dive into it. So, um, uh, just me doing a little research, uh, Don Norman, is the one who really kind of coined the term user experience.He's a cognitive scientist. and he said user experience encompasses all aspects of the end user's interaction with the company, its services and its products. And so when you're putting out a website, Anymore. I mean, this is the digital version of your practice. Like before people step in the door to this physical practice, they are on your website.This is how people experience you, that patient experience, that new patient experience. And so it's your ux. Really designing a site without a mind is about the feelings and emotions users experience when interacting with your website. So if you think about that right now, kind in this post covid world, think about it from a, a convenience.Lens, right? Like we all now are interacting with our healthcare providers. We're interacting with our pizza, like our Friday night pizza place through, through text. You know, I mean, I'm placing an order online and then I'm getting a text. Hey, your order's been submitted, you know, be here in 15 minutes. And then as I'm pulling it up, I get another text.Your order is ready. Come, come in and pick it. Pick it up. So we're all interacting with our favorite companies like this. And so thinking about that user experience from that type of convenience, user friendliness, part of it, I think is number one. So, convenience, uh, user friendliness, the journey.And really just what do you want people, like, what do you want them feeling when they get off of the website? that's the question to ask. You can build a website that's SEO forward, uh, you can build an a, uh, website that is like going to convert for Google AdWords. But I think you also, an equally important question in that is what do you want that patient to feel?Mm-hmm. Is it frustration because they've had the, like, input stuff into a form four, four times? Or is it because they were two clicks away from making an appointment and they go, wow, that was easy. Michael: Mm-hmm. Gotcha. Okay, so let me ask you personally, what do you want to feel? Yeah, your dentist, like your people that you go visit.How does that work? Joshua: yeah, when it comes time to actually convert on a transaction. Whether I'm ordering pizza on Friday night or whether I'm scheduling a healthcare appointment. Yeah, I want it to be easy. I want it to be straightforward, Michael, you know, when you're on those like websites and it just feels like it's from like 1995 when you're trying to like, like the form that comes up.Mm-hmm. You're like, wait, what is this thing? It doesn't have auto fill. Like you've gotta type in everything. Um, You know, you drop down, like, like your country gets a dropdown menu and it's, and the United States is all the way at the bottom when 90% of your users are in the United States. Yeah. You know, those types of things.And, and you go like, that's not that big of a deal. It just is, you know, like we're talking about as least amount of friction as little time, convenience, friendliness as possible. Michael: Where do you see the drop off? Then if you can give us like a, a number on that where it's like, okay, man, they almost made it.To submit that form, but you lost them here. Joshua: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know that I have data on that. I think some of this, and one of the things I wanted to talk about was really kind of the four, I think, convenience pieces of a website right now, kind of post covid and, and I think some of this, to answer your question is cuz the first one is, is about online scheduling.Like I think. We're just at a place now, like, man, you've gotta have online scheduling on your site. and when you ask like, what's the drop off? I think if you're using a lot of these premier, uh, partners out there, like Local Med Next Health, you know, practice by numbers, some of these guys, I think they've built really good user experiences into those apps.So, you know, I don't know that you're gonna have that much of a problem, but if you're using, a different one, I, I don't even know a good example right now, but, here's one of the things I recommend, right? Like if you implement online scheduling, go through that process yourself and schedule yourself an appointment to see how it feels.I, I've seen so many practices implement things like this, and then they're like, I don't know, like I'm like, you're getting 18 texts within a 48 hour period of time. Is that what you wanted? Well, why? I didn't know that. And I'm like, well, right. But like put yourself through that process. Tweak it, edit it.Make sure it's saying what you want it to say. Make sure it's doing what you want it to do. But you know, online scheduling is huge. You're gonna see an increase in your website, effectiveness, uh, you're gonna see an increase in new patients. It's just all these things. Now, um, there's actually stats and, and reports out there that are saying online scheduling.It's actually reducing no shows, which is everybody's argument. Like, oh, if I, if I do online scheduling, no shows are gonna go up. On the whole, once you get that implemented and you build systems around that nohow go down, it saves staff time. You're gonna get better insights into your data online. Uh, and it's mobile accessible.People can make an appointment right on their mobile phone. So my first one there was, was online scheduling. Get that implemented. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. I like that, that you mentioned you gotta build systems around it because, you know what I mean? We always just thought like, yeah, you have that button on there and that's it.Yeah. Uh, but it's the. The follow up process in the systems. Awesome. So what are the next Joshua: stuff? Yeah, the the next one is, is, I mean, there's, there's four of these really, but it's, it's implementing these integrations to make this a more friendly and convenient experience. The second one's chat, you know, adding a live chat feature, uh, dentistry iq, so it can double the amount of website visitors scheduling an appointment.you get this online schedule app, but if you add text, those online appointments go up twice as much. It's just facts from dentistry iq, uh, and I think, you know, 63% of millennials right now say that they prefer chat over phone calls. Again, that's just in the world we're in. If you have to pick up the phone to call an actual human, we feel like it's an inconvenience, you know, like, like, man, why am I, why are they making me do that?So, you know, I think implementing chat into your site, just making sure I, I'm not a fan of the automated chat bots. I still don't think they sound human. So I think you still gotta have somebody like on that and monitoring it. But again, like we're talking about optimizing your website for that ux. If you have online scheduling, but you don't have chat, you're potentially leaving half of those conversions on the website.Mm-hmm. So I think that's an important piece. Michael: Okay. So chat and not so much like the AI chat is what you're saying, right? Like actually have somebody on there at 11:00 PM like where it's like, Hey man, the beer bottle just broke my tooth. What do I do? Or, or what are you thinking? Joshua: Well, you could set up like hours around it, you know, and, and when people are available to monitor it and you can kind of turn it off and on for sure.Um, but yeah, you know, I mean chat, g p d as, as good as it is, um, I don't know that we're quite there yet for answering those, those questions and, and plus I, we, People just have still an expectation that chat means there's another human there. Um mm-hmm. You know, responding to them. so I think that's a big one.You know, patient forms is my number three and, and I'm bringing these up man, cause I'm actually not a partner. Like, I don't partner with any of these companies. and we, we integrate, we've built integrations with all of them, you know, into our, our web experiences. But I'm not from Meto or Local Med or, yeah.You know, Nexel, like promoting it. I'm just going, no guys, these are really, really important tools that we see the analytics behind it. It, it's huge. And so, you know, I think Patient Forms is a third one. Uh, you know, we're now, it's like it's tipped more than 50% of patients want online forms before they get to an appointment.Uh, nobody wants to sit there with the clipboard and fill stuff out. And then, you know, the other thing too is like, what online forms are doing is it's really consolidating stuff into, you filled it out one time. I don't know how many, uh, healthcare appointments you've been to where it's like, You answer the questions on the phone, then you get the form and you fill it out again.And each form has like your mailing address on it. You know, so like the new patient form, you gotta like write out your whole mailing address. Then the health history form, you gotta write out your mailing address again. Yeah. And then the HIPAA form, you gotta write out your mailing address a third time.And it's like, why are we, I get to the point where I'm, I'm so irritated writing out my mailing address. and so online forms reduce that. Uh, it improves accuracy again, like if your front office is just swamped. Man, putting some of these efficiencies in place will help them a ton. Okay, Michael: gotcha. So patient forms online.Joshua: Yeah. Yeah. And, and then the last one man was just reviews. Um, you know, and I know we all like know the importance of reviews now, but really just building that into your web experience. Again, it's that user, um, that UX first, seeing social proof, giving pa your patients a chance to, you know, one, the two clicks away from leaving a review as well.yeah, I don't know. I don't really need to go into the. The importance of reviews. I think we're all there now in 2023, but Swell BirdEye, these are both companies that do an amazing job with that. And um, so, so I think as you're thinking through the UX of your site, the first question, big picture was how do I create a easy, convenient, friendly user experience for my patients?Here are four tools I think will help you do that if implemented. Right. and then before we go here, I can talk about ADA a compliance a little bit. Okay. Yeah, Michael: man. Let's, let's dive into that a little bit because I know, um, I think that's coming up a little bit more often now. I don't know, do you see that or?Joshua: We do. Um, and, and just to be clear, when we're talking about ADA compliance, we're talking about American Disabilities Acts, not the American Dental Association. And so it's really about, uh, we see it more in bigger cities and honestly specifically San Francisco. So, um, for whate and. and we've, we've actually seen a little bit in Dallas too, uh, and maybe one in New York, but it's, I think it's, what happens is it's where somebody else has a lawsuit brought against them for their website not being ADA a compliant, and then all the other dentists in the area freak out about it.And then we get it like emails from our clients like, Hey, are we ADA a compliant? And so the, the question to that is really three levels of it that I want to give you. So ADA compliance is about making your website. Compliant for Americans with disabilities. And so that includes things like color, font size, the color of the font on the backgrounds, how big the buttons are, things like that to help, you know, people with disabilities navigate a site.the truth is that is often at odds with. The experience, the aesthetic experience, the brand experience we want to create with a website. Mm-hmm. And so the quick answer is our websites and I, and most people out there have done a base level job of creating a website that's a d a compliant. So we kind of go, here are the factors.We think we want the buttons to be a certain, you know, a size on a phone. We want it to scroll. When it comes to like, you know, you put text over a photo. Is that ADA a compliant? Probably not. You know, they want white text on a black background or white text on a dark blue background, something like that so people can read it easy.So there's a couple solutions and one of 'em, you can get an a ADA widget that actually lives at the bottom of your site. You can click on it and then you can actually adjust anything you want. You can adjust colors, you can take the pictures out, you can increase the font sizes. So it gives your users the ability to come on and go, wow, this font size is way too small and increase it.Mm-hmm. Or, I'm having trouble reading that text over the photos. Let me take those out and replace 'em with solid backgrounds. So that's one option. The downside is they start messing around with this stuff and it, it makes your website look jacked up. I mean, we, as a team, we were, we were messing around with some of these sites on a Monday morning.With this ADA compliant widget, and it's like, it, it can really, I mean, you wanna laugh and have a good time, it can really make your website look crazy. yeah, so it's, it's kinda, but that tends to, I think it's like 30 bucks a month that tends to solve most people's issues. If you're in an area where you're just hyper aware of it, hypersensitive you, you've got lawsuits happening left and right.Like if you were in San Francisco, I would tell you there's even a third level of working with, uh, some of these agencies. They will custom design this, like they'll take this widget and customize it for your site. So it's not just applying like blanket parameters, it's actually like increase the font. It increases the font in scale overall.So the website actually still looks nice and is functional. And they typically provide consultation and even legal protection. Typically those packages are like 3,500. but they, again, they customize the a d a, uh, whatever parameters on your site. So your site still looks good if they have to adjust that.But it also offers some legal protection as well. Michael: Well, do you guys, the Studio 88, do that customize. Joshua: we actually will provide that to our clients as a, um, if they get into that, we basically connect them with that company, with that agency. And, and Michael? I, I don't know it off the top of my head.I kind of, you know, we were chatting about this for a minute before the show and I was like, yeah, I can talk about it. I can send you who we work with. You can maybe put in the show notes. Yeah, Michael: that, yeah, that'd be awesome. That'd be, especially for our San Fran. Yeah. I don't know why it's only happening out there, but you know what I mean.Or Dallas too, but, Joshua: San Fran and California, man, it's a whole different world and I think when it comes to, um, governing Yeah, so it's, they just tend to, to have different regulations than sometimes the rest of the country. Yeah. Michael: It's crazy, man. But awesome. So you've given us a lot to think about, especially when it comes to much just building systems to make it efficient, right?To make it. More human with the chat feature. Uh, patient forms, efficiency, and then the reviews. Obviously reviews are super duper important no matter what, right? That's that, that's that proof that you're talking about that we're gonna need no matter what. And then, um, putting the systems around, the online scheduling.Awesome. Josh, man, we really appreciate this. If anybody has any questions or they wanna reach out to you, where can they find you? Joshua: Man, best place for me. Uh, if you wanna hit me up on Instagram, uh, it's at Joshua Scott. I'm still in that account still. Check it. DM me, tell me you heard the episode. I'll, I'll, you know, shout out you back.Uh, you can also visit us online at s eight e eight.com. That's the letter s, the number eight, the letter E, the number eight.com. And uh, you can reach out to us there as well. Michael: Nice man. And guys, check out Studio 80 eights websites. They're, uh, we were talking about this right before we got on in. You guys are all about the user, right?Use your experience first, especially the design. Everybody, pretty much everybody listening right now kind of knows about like, okay, we've heard of Studio 88 and how elevated you guys are, right? So, um, I highly recommend people if they want, can they just schedule like a free, I don't know, like, Hey man, check, check out my stuff.Can you, can you check it out? For Joshua: free. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. That's actually part of our kind of, uh, initial consultative phone call is just like going through like, what are you doing? Like, what's working, what's not working? What, what's your budget been? You know, we look at the website, look at the seo, kind of do an analysis so that we go into it.We, we actually can give advice too. A lot of times what I tell people is I'm like, I hope you at least walk away with some advice on this phone call, whether or not you want to use us or not. Even if I'm my second opinion, you're like, this company's telling me X, Y, Z, and I'm like, Yeah. Uh, x, y, Z is right.So, you know, if you need the second opinion on it, like we, we can do that as well. I like that. Michael: Yeah, Josh told us. Yes. So we're gonna do it. Gotcha. Awesome. So guys, that's gonna be in the show below. Definitely schedule your free comprehensive assessment, um, and check it out. So thank you so much, Josh for being with me on this Monday morning marketing episode.Joshua: Always a pleasure, man.‍‍‍

Time now for a horror story, an original, narrated episode of fiction. You will discover the fateful experiences of Dax, someone you will not soon forget, no matter what. This kinky taboo tale was written by Don Norman for the “Taboo Truths and Tales” podcast series.

We've all had delightful digital experiences. They're the surprising, novel moments we didn't know we wanted but suddenly can't live without. According to a recent Forrester report, delight drives business revenue: a one-point improvement in a company's customer experience score can lead to an additional $175 million in revenue over three years, higher customer retention rates, and lower customer acquisition costs. WillowTree Partner and VP of Commercial Strategy Nate Wootten helps the world's most beloved brands build and incorporate delightful digital product features into their growth strategies. Recognized as a “40 under 40 Top Mobile Innovator,” Nate leads our award-winning strategy and design thinking practice and has spoken on digital innovation worldwide — from Apple's Cupertino campus to client conferences in Hong Kong. Nate joins Billie to discuss how companies can architect moments of delight that drive customer adoption, loyalty, and revenue. We explore frameworks our teams use to help clients categorize and compare delightful product features to other feature categories, such as must-haves, performatives, and thresholds. Join us as we lay out the roadmap to delight across product practices like research, strategy, design, and growth. Hot topics discussed:Using the Kano Model to measure consumer value and identify our clients' delightful, premium price-point product featuresHelping our clients identify actionable next steps in their journey map through the tech-agnostic Jobs-To-Be-Done frameworkUX thought leader Don Norman's “three-legged stool” is another model to visualize delight — built on what's visceral, behavioral, and reflective Keep the growth going: Explore additional frameworks and strategies at The UXR's Annotations and Nate Wootten's websiteConnect with Nate Wootten, Partner and VP of Commercial Strategy, on LinkedInConnect with Billie Loewen, WillowTree Partner & VP of Growth Marketing on LinkedInFollow WillowTree on LinkedIn

More than 80% of strategic plans fail. So chances are, if you're an organizational leader, you're (unfortunately) part of that group. But there are ways to turn that tradition around — and actually execute on the strategies you spend so much time designing.    Our latest guest is an expert in helping companies do just that. Aric Wood is the CEO of XPLANE, a global design consultancy that serves Fortune 500 businesses and global organizations to clarify, communicate, and activate their strategies and drive change in their organizations. He is also the author of the Strategy Activation Playbook.   Tune into the full episode for more on common mistakes that companies make in their strategic planning, the importance of human-centered design in reversing that trend, how many touchpoints you *really* need with your team to actually execute your vision, how to use focus groups to understand barriers, and more.   Here's a Glimpse of What You'll Learn:    More about Aric's company, XPLANE The statistic about strategic planning that was “infuriating” for Aric — and how his company helps to change that stat What an organization's failure to reach its vision or strategic initiatives boils down to Why human-centered design is important to incorporate into strategic planning Why the way companies have traditionally rolled out strategy is a “dinosaur” — and what's changing now  More about the 80-20 rule, and how understanding it can impact change management at your organization How many touchpoints you typically need with your team (and what kind of touchpoints) if you want to successfully enact a strategic plan How to use focus groups to figure out the barriers to change at your organization Why the “smartest person in the room” is actually the “room” Why rolling out a strategy as a 100-page PowerPoint deck is a bad plan — and what to do instead  The biggest obstacle to actually executing a strategic plan How Aric measures success with his clients    Resources Mentioned in This Episode:  XPLANE consultancy Aric Wood on LinkedIn “The Strategy Activation Playbook: A Practical Approach to Bringing Your Strategies to Life” by Aric Wood “The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman 40 Strategy Contact 40 Strategy Carl J. Cox on LinkedIn  

Bree Groff is fighting for a future in which humanity and business performance are valued equally. As social problems like inequality, resource management, and climate action come to a head, leaders are being called to take the courageous action of designing work that serves stakeholders and humanity alike. In this episode, Dart and Bree discuss the challenges leaders are facing, the shifting norms of work, and how we can better design work for humans.Bree Groff is a partner at SYPartners, a transformation company that helps great leaders build great companies. Her work focuses on transformation, innovation, organizational design, and culture, and she has worked with companies like Calvin Klein, Target, Microsoft, and Google.In this episode, Dart and Bree discuss:- The internal work required of today's leaders- Defining a humanity-centric organization- The root causes of bad work- Shopify's elimination of most company meetings- Authenticity at work- Bree's takeaways from consulting with startups- Liminal leadership- How expectations for company leaders are becoming more and more complex- And other topics…Bree Groff is a partner at SYPartners, where she focuses on transformation, innovation, organizational design, and culture while advising leaders at companies including Calvin Klein, Target, Google, Microsoft, and Diligent. Before working at SYPartners, Bree was the CEO of the global consultancy NOBL Collective.During her career, Bree has advised Fortune 500 companies as a service designer, explored decision-making as a psychology researcher, and spoken as a global keynote speaker both in-person and virtually. She holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.S. in Organizational Learning and Change from Northwestern University, where she is also a visiting lecturer.Resources Mentioned:The Design of Everyday Things, by Don Norman: https://www.amazon.com/Design-of-Everyday-Things-audiobook/dp/B07L5Y9HND A World Without Email, by Cal Newport: https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Email-Reimagining-Communication/dp/B08BTGX926 Connect with Bree:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bree-groff-94281136/ www.SYPartners.com www.BreeGroff.com

Don Norman, the Godfather of UX Design and Cognitive Science's foremost pioneer, joins to discuss his new book “Design for a Better World” and how human behavior can save the world from its dire predicament.

What role does design have in solving the world's biggest problems? What can designers add? Some would say that designers played a role in getting us into our current mess. Can they also get us out of it? How can we design solutions for problems in complex systems that are evolving, emerging, and changing?To answer these questions, we talked with Don Norman about his book, Design for a Better World: Meaningful, Sustainable, Humanity Centered. In his book, Don proposes a new way of thinking, one that recognizes our place in a complex global system where even simple behaviors affect the entire world. He identifies the economic metrics that contribute to the harmful effects of commerce and manufacturing and proposes a recalibration of what we consider important in life.Don Norman is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science and Psychology and founding director of the Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego from which he has retired twice. Don is also retired from and holds the emeritus title from Northwestern University, the Nielsen Norman Group and a few other organizations. He was an Apple Vice President, has been an advisor and board member for numerous companies, and has three honorary degrees. His numerous books have been translated into over 20 languages, including The Design of Everyday Things and Living with Complexity.It was a true pleasure to talk with Don, someone who we have read and followed for decades. His work is central to much of today's design practices and we loved talking with him about where he hopes design may take us.Learn more about Don Norman.Learn more about Don's book Design for a Better World.If you enjoy our podcasts, please subscribe and leave a positive rating or comment. Sharing your positive feedback helps us reach more people and connect them with the world's great minds.Learn more about Sonder StudioSubscribe to get Artificiality delivered to your emailLearn about our book Make Better Decisions and buy it on AmazonThanks to Jonathan Coulton for our music This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit artificiality.substack.com

I caught up with Karel Vredenburg, Karel is currently IBM Global Vice President, Client Insights and Research and responsible for leading the company's global team of researchers and the insights they provide to product, services, and executive teams. Karel joined IBM in 1988 after having done graduate studies, research, and teaching at the University of Toronto. He introduced User-Centered Design at IBM in 1993 and assumed a company-wide role in 1995 leading IBM's community of designers, leading the development of design methods, languages, and technologies, and leading the design of the commercialization of the IBM Watson. In 2013, Karel help found a new IBM Design program together with General Manager of Design, Phil Gilbert, and IBM Fellow, Charlie Hill. Karel personally introduced the new design program which included Enterprise Design Thinking to IBM product development laboratories worldwide and introduced a tailored version of it to IBM consulting services and technology services organizations worldwide from 2014 through 2016. He next focused on the development and activation of Enterprise Design Thinking for client facing professionals worldwide and rolled that to IBM's top client accounts in 2017 and 2018. He has also conducted workshops with the c-suite and senior executive teams of hundreds of industry leading companies worldwide as well as with startups, scale-ups, and public organizations.  We chat about lots of amazing areas, such as where Design needs to go in the future to be more affective, Design Coaching, Design Education and cover off some of the key insights from the work that Karel and Don Norman have been working towards with the Future of Design Education project. Karel is awesome and I know you will love this conversation -  https://www.futureofdesigneducation.org http://karelvredenburg.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/karelvredenburg/?originalSubdomain=ca Karels podcast https://www.karelvredenburg.com/lifehabitsmentoring Other links Become a Patron of This is HCD / https://www.thisishcd.com/become-a-patron Sign up to This is HCD Newsletter / https://www.thisishcd.com/community/stay-up-to-date-with-this-is-hcd Follow Gerry Scullion on Twitter / https://twitter.com/gerrycircus Follow This is HCD on Twitter / https://twitter.com/thisishcd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#273 The State of VR in 2022Interview 2022.08.11 Your nice hosts talk to Andrew Eiche, COO at Owlchemy Labs (Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator, Cosmonious High) about the state of VR in 2022, and where VR and VR development tools may be going in the coming years.Andrew talks about how industrial design should influence VR design, why you shouldn't take inspiration from movies, and how ergonomics are important. Also, Ellen takes a hard stand on the right way to use a dial. VR in 2022 and its Future VR / AR / XROwlchemy LabsThe Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman, bookHeadsetsPico VR HeadsetPlaystation VR2VR EnginesVRTK (Virtual Reality Tool Kit)TButt - Turbo ButtonCosmonious HighCosmonius High on Tik Tok - Tik TokCosmonius High on TwitterCosmonius High on SteamAndrew EicheGuest Andrew Eiche is Chief Operating Owl and Cable Slinger at Owlchemy Labs. Andrew's background is game development and computer programing External link Andrew Eiche is on Twitter @buddingmonkeyOwlchemy Labs on Twitter @olwchemylabsOwlchemy Labs website

In this episode I discuss the Double Diamond Model and how it can be utilized to improve creativity in your design process. Through divergent and convergent thinking, the Double Diamond Model allows designers to ideate, explore, define, and deliver innovative solutions to complex problems.Show Notes:Huberman Lab Podcast: https://hubermanlab.com/the-science-of-creativity-and-how-to-enhance-creative-innovation/The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman: https://a.co/d/3ofBo2a"Design more. Despair Less." Trademark of Design30 LLC.Copyright 2022 Design30 LLC.

Quand on comprend que le but des UX designers est d'engager et convertir les utilisateurs en clients, on capte vite que ça implique de comprendre comment nous percevons le monde, comment nous raisonnons, comment fonctionne notre attention et comment fonctionnent nos émotions ! En gros, comprendre comment fonctionne notre cerveau ! Et oui, aujourd'hui tous les designers que ce soit d'applications, de sites internet, d'objets, de maisons, ont bien conscience du fait que les neurosciences leur sont d'une grande utilité ! Beaucoup de UX designers s'appuient sur des éléments neuroscientifiques pour vous offrir une interface adaptée à la façon dont votre cerveau fonctionne ! Et ça, c'est le programme de cet épisode. Quelles astuces mettent-ils en place pour capter notre attention ? Qu'ont-ils bien compris sur le fonctionnement de notre cerveau pour nous faire rester une application ou un site internet ? Comment s'y prennent les designers pour générer des émotions positives en vous ? Production, animation, réalisation et illustration : Anaïs Roux Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/neurosapiens.podcast/ neurosapiens.podcast@gmail.com Produit et distribué en association avec LACME Production. ________ Pour apprendre à créer rapidement et à moindre coût son podcast, c'est par ici : https://www.neurosapiens.fr/commentcreerunpodcast _________ Musique  KEEP ON GOING Musique proposée par La Musique Libre Joakim Karud - Keep On Going : https://youtu.be/lOfg0jRqaA8 Joakim Karud : https://soundcloud.com/joakimkarud ONE NIGHT AWAY Musique de Patrick Patrikios Sources :  Mary C. Dyson (2004) How physical text layout affects reading from screen, Behaviour & Information Technology, 23:6, 377-393, DOI: 10.1080/01449290410001715714 Conférence Ted, Don Norman expose les 3 façons qu'a le design de vous rendre heureux.  Formation “La psychologie appliquée au design” et “UX Design : découvrez les fondamentaux” d'OpenClassRooms

Your nice hosts talk to Andrew Eiche, COO at Owlchemy Labs (Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator, Cosmonious High) about the state of VR in 2022, and where VR and VR development tools may be going in the coming years.Andrew talks about how industrial design should influence VR design, why you shouldn't take inspiration from movies, and how ergonomics are important. Also, Ellen takes a hard stand on the right way to use a dial. VR in 2022 and its Future VR / AR / XROwlchemy LabsThe Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman, bookHeadsetsPico VR HeadsetPlaystation VR2VR EnginesVRTK (Virtual Reality Tool Kit)TButt - Turbo ButtonCosmonious HighCosmonius High on Tik Tok - Tik TokCosmonius High on TwitterCosmonius High on SteamAndrew EicheGuest Andrew Eiche is Chief Operating Owl and Cable Slinger at Owlchemy Labs. Andrew's background is game development and computer programing External link Andrew Eiche is on Twitter @buddingmonkeyOwlchemy Labs on Twitter @olwchemylabsOwlchemy Labs website

Your nice hosts talk to Andrew Eiche, COO at Owlchemy Labs (Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator, Cosmonious High) about the state of VR in 2022, and where VR and VR development tools may be going in the coming years.Andrew talks about how industrial design should influence VR design, why you shouldn't take inspiration from movies, and how ergonomics are important. Also, Ellen takes a hard stand on the right way to use a dial. VR in 2022 and its Future VR / AR / XROwlchemy LabsThe Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman, bookHeadsetsPico VR HeadsetPlaystation VR2VR EnginesVRTK (Virtual Reality Tool Kit)TButt - Turbo ButtonCosmonious HighCosmonius High on Tik Tok - Tik TokCosmonius High on TwitterCosmonius High on SteamAndrew EicheGuest Andrew Eiche is Chief Operating Owl and Cable Slinger at Owlchemy Labs. Andrew's background is game development and computer programing External link Andrew Eiche is on Twitter @buddingmonkeyOwlchemy Labs on Twitter @olwchemylabsOwlchemy Labs website

Today we chat with Thomas Randolph from GitLab, to discuss his Top 10 list of the upcoming TC39 proposals. The list… Temporal Proposal Import Assertions JSON Modules Built-In Modules Observable Proposal Partial Application UUID Pipeline Operator Module Blocks Emitter Proposal +1 Records and Tuples +2 Reverse and Sort Methods on Arrays Sponsors Top End Devs (https://topenddevs.com/) Coaching | Top End Devs (https://topenddevs.com/coaching) Links Twitter: Thomas Randolph ( @rockerest ) (https://twitter.com/rockerest) JSJ 425: The Evolution of JavaScript (https://javascriptjabber.com/jsj-425-the-evolution-of-javascript) Temporal (https://tc39.es/proposal-temporal/docs/) import assertions (https://tc39.es/proposal-import-assertions/) JSON modules (https://tc39.es/proposal-json-modules/) The TC39 Process (https://tc39.es/process-document/) Observable (https://tc39.es/proposal-observable/) Partial Application for ECMAScript (https://tc39.es/proposal-partial-application/) ES pipe operator (2021) (https://tc39.es/proposal-pipeline-operator/) JavaScript Module Blocks (https://tc39.es/proposal-js-module-blocks/) Record & Tuple (https://tc39.es/proposal-record-tuple/) ECMAScript proposal "Change Array by copy": four new non-destructive Array methods (https://2ality.com/2022/04/change-array-by-copy.html) GitHub: tc39/proposals (https://github.com/tc39/proposals) JavaScript Jabber 19 April 2022 (https://rockerest.notion.site/JavaScript-Jabber-19-April-2022-1badf36afe844532922888f5132a25f8) Thomas O. Randolph (https://rdl.ph/) Picks Charles - The Last Battle (https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Last-Battle-Audiobook/B002UZJF22) Charles - GamePigeon (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gamepigeon/id1124197642) Dan - Star Trek: Picard (https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/star-trek-picard/) Dan - 103 Early Hints Dan - War in Ukraine Steve - Dad Jokes Steve - Rescinded mask mandates for travel Thomas - My notes to this episode (https://rockerest.notion.site/JavaScript-Jabber-19-April-2022-1badf36afe844532922888f5132a25f8) Thomas - The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman (https://amzn.to/3Nifiw8) Thomas - What is Reactive Programming by Kevin Webber (https://blog.redelastic.com/what-is-reactive-programming-bc9fa7f4a7fc) Thomas - War in Ukraine Special Guest: Thomas Randolph.

Today we chat with Thomas Randolph from GitLab, to discuss his Top 10 list of the upcoming TC39 proposals. The list… Temporal Proposal Import Assertions JSON Modules Built-In Modules Observable Proposal Partial Application UUID Pipeline Operator Module Blocks Emitter Proposal +1 Records and Tuples +2 Reverse and Sort Methods on Arrays Sponsors Top End Devs (https://topenddevs.com/) Raygun | Click here to get started on your free 14-day trial (https://raygun.com/?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=jsjabber&utm_campaign=devchat&utm_content=homepage) Coaching | Top End Devs (https://topenddevs.com/coaching) Links Twitter: Thomas Randolph ( @rockerest ) (https://twitter.com/rockerest) JSJ 425: The Evolution of JavaScript (https://javascriptjabber.com/jsj-425-the-evolution-of-javascript) Temporal (https://tc39.es/proposal-temporal/docs/) import assertions (https://tc39.es/proposal-import-assertions/) JSON modules (https://tc39.es/proposal-json-modules/) The TC39 Process (https://tc39.es/process-document/) Observable (https://tc39.es/proposal-observable/) Partial Application for ECMAScript (https://tc39.es/proposal-partial-application/) ES pipe operator (2021) (https://tc39.es/proposal-pipeline-operator/) JavaScript Module Blocks (https://tc39.es/proposal-js-module-blocks/) Record & Tuple (https://tc39.es/proposal-record-tuple/) ECMAScript proposal "Change Array by copy": four new non-destructive Array methods (https://2ality.com/2022/04/change-array-by-copy.html) GitHub: tc39/proposals (https://github.com/tc39/proposals) JavaScript Jabber 19 April 2022 (https://rockerest.notion.site/JavaScript-Jabber-19-April-2022-1badf36afe844532922888f5132a25f8) Thomas O. Randolph (https://rdl.ph/) Picks Charles - The Last Battle (https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Last-Battle-Audiobook/B002UZJF22) Charles - GamePigeon (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gamepigeon/id1124197642) Dan - Star Trek: Picard (https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/star-trek-picard/) Dan - 103 Early Hints Dan - War in Ukraine Steve - Dad Jokes Steve - Rescinded mask mandates for travel Thomas - My notes to this episode (https://rockerest.notion.site/JavaScript-Jabber-19-April-2022-1badf36afe844532922888f5132a25f8) Thomas - The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman (https://amzn.to/3Nifiw8) Thomas - What is Reactive Programming by Kevin Webber (https://blog.redelastic.com/what-is-reactive-programming-bc9fa7f4a7fc) Thomas - War in Ukraine Special Guest: Thomas Randolph.

Dr. Anna Harrison is a top ranked Digital Technology Advisor, Product Expert and Author. Anna's work has helped New Zealand's best exporting and emerging brands create strategic and measurable plans to accelerate growth in new markets. Supported by successes across Europe, Asia, and the USA, Anna's work will help you remove your reliance on luck in the future success of your brand.   Questions   We always like to give guest the opportunity to kind of just share a little bit about their journey in their own words. Your book Digital Brand Romance, could you tell us a little bit about the book? Could you explain to our audience what customer expectations are versus what customer satisfaction is? Could you define for our listeners what a promise is? So, that dovetails us nicely into the core of your book is based on the ADORE Process. Could you take our listeners through what that process is and what are the milestones in the journey of that process? Could you also share with our listeners what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business? Could you also share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you, it could be a book that you read recently, or even one that you read a very long time ago, but it still has had a great impact on you. What's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. Where can listeners find you online? Do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track if for any reason you got derailed or you got off track?   Highlights   Anna's Journey   Anna stated that we are in for a treat. So, probably the best way to describe her journey is that it is non-standard and very nonlinear. She's lived on four continents and done a whole bunch of different things. And probably if you look back across the last sort of two decades of work, the only common thread amongst it all is that she's done interesting things and she's worked with great people, and that really is something that drives her and motivates her to seek out new challenges and look for different things. So, loosely speaking, she's worked in product design and product development, started in IT and so back in technology, work a lot with customer experience, and the drivers that help people to make choices and help brands to sell more stuff to loyal customers.   What is Your Book Digital Brand Romance About?   Me: So, our podcast is all about Navigating the Customer Experience. As you can imagine, when your email came across my attention, and I saw that you wrote this book called Digital Brand Romance: How to Create Lasting Relationships in a Digital World, I said to myself, this sounds very interesting and then I read a little bit more and it really got me intrigued. And so, I'm sure just as how I was intrigued, our listeners will be just as intrigued about your book. So, could you tell us a little bit about the book?   Anna stated that Navigating the Customer Experience just to sort of jump out and big picture, it's her passion, it's what she thinks about at 3:00 am in the mornings. So, lots of mutual interest and overlap and she's excited to share some of the things she's learned in her life with our audience today.   So, Digital Brand Romance, it's the combination of about a life's work so to say, and it looks at the factors that influence us as human beings and propel us to be loyal to a brand or not. And the cool thing about the book is that it breaks all of that down into really easy steps. And she thinks if we look at digital experiences and customer experience, and all of that, and it's all in a digital space, very often we get a little bit scared, and we think, “Oh my God, what do we know about this space?” And we kind of forget that always at the other end of the computer, the person buying your pair of shoes, or the person buying the handbag that you're selling, or the SaaS product that you're selling is a human.   And as humans, we form relationships, and we make decisions in really predictable ways. And so, we remember this when we have relationships with other people in real life but as soon as we go to digital, we just forget everything we learned and we make things very transactional in our digital spaces, and we just hard sell the consumers.   And then we wonder why things are not working and why most of our marketing budget is being spent on Google AdWords and our conversion rates are super low, like 1% or 2%.   So, the book really explores what are the levers that we can pull to help us understand how people make decisions. And then how do we apply that to our digital assets, like websites, like email marketing campaigns, like our sales process, to really build strong relationships and a loyal customer base.   What Customer Expectations Are Versus What Customer Satisfaction Is   Me: Now, one of the things that came across my attention when I was reviewing your book, I like the fact that you spoke about customer expectations, you spoke about customer satisfaction, and you spoke about why they were very different. Could you explain to our audience what customer expectations are versus what customer satisfaction is?   Anna stated that it's an interesting distinction here and when we think about customer experience, this is an interesting study that was done by Forbes a few years ago. So, Forbes interviewed a whole bunch of brands. And they said, “Hey, how would you rate your customer experiences?” And 80% of the brands said, “They're excellent, they're awesome, we're doing a great job, our customers are happy.” They interviewed those brands, customers, and only 8% of people said that they were really satisfied with the customer experience. And so, that's a really big kind of discrepancy there. Most brands think they're providing great experiences, and most customers think they are not getting a great experience.   And so, this is the difference between those two things is customer satisfaction, and satisfaction; it's a very personal and subjective thing, she may satisfied with something, whereas someone listening to this podcast might say, “No, that's terrible, I'm very dissatisfied with exactly the same thing.” And so, understanding customer satisfaction and how we can affect it is really the most powerful lever that we have in curating experiences for our customers.   So, to answer the question succinctly, satisfaction is the difference between what you expect and what you receive, or what you perceive of the experience. So, if you're expecting to wait in line for a meal for half an hour, and you get your table 15 minutes in, you're going to be delighted, you're going to be like, “Wow, this is fantastic. I was expecting to wait half an hour, and we're in early.”   Whereas conversely, if you're expecting to get seated at a restaurant straight away, and they make you wait 15 minutes, you're going to be very, very dissatisfied. And so, the same exact experience is delivered by the provider, you get seated in 15 minutes. But in one case, you're satisfied, and you're delighted, because your expectations were that it could be longer. And then the other case, you really disappointed because your expectations were that it would be shorter.   And so, as a brand, and this is where all your energy can be very effective if focused right is, all you can do is set your customers' expectations at the right level and through that you affect their satisfaction. That might be a bit too textbook nerdy, so she can give some examples if you prefer.   Me: Yeah, I think an example would be good to kind of just cement it for the audience so that they really understand. I got to reading the theory part of it totally and I thought it was a brilliant definition. I just really wanted you to share that, but if you could give us an example, that would be even greater.   Anna shared that there are tons of examples. So, let's say you buy something online. And she bought a bar fridge recently. So, she bought a bar fridge, and it said it will be delivered in two days and so, her expectations are that in two days' time the bar fridge will arrive. And then she got a message saying, “Please schedule your delivery.” And the only dates available were next week. So, 7 days from when she bought it, not two days. So, straightaway, she's like, “Hey, I'm not happy with this, because I was expecting, and you told me that the fridge would be delivered in two days.” So, the only change that needs to happen there is that the brand selling the fridge should just tell her that the fridge won't be available for a week or perhaps even 10 days. And then her expectations are set at the right place, and she's delighted with the outcome.   Me: Yeah, I suppose it's kind of like when we train our employees in organizations, and we'll say that we should under promise and over deliver. And one of the things that I think impacts customer expectations greatly is what we communicate. And sometimes what we communicate - it's not the truth, or I don't know. Sometimes I think organizations communicate information that is incorrect intentionally, like it is their intention to exceed the customers' expectations. So, they give them a reasonable time in their mind but then, when the actual experience is realized, what was communicated and what actually occurred, they're not correlating.   Anna stated that that's an excellent example. And to dig a little bit deeper into that, she thinks setting your customers' expectations that are realistic or perhaps a level under which you know you can over perform is a really good strategy, with a little asterix on that, as long as you're doing that in an authentic way. Because consumers are smart and as soon as your consumer feels that you're trying to deceive them, that opens another can of worms, they're going to run for the hills because no one likes the feeling that they're being lied to.   However, as a brand, you have the ability to authentically communicate and to deliver information and this is something that's super interesting that there was a lot of research done in the 80s by Don Norman, if you know him, he's like one of the godfathers of design and have written amazing books over the years. But what came out of his research was that people are really open to changing their expectations when you provide them with authentic information.   So, coming back to our restaurant example, if she's waiting in line for a table, and she's expecting it will take a couple of minutes, but it's going to be 15. If the restaurant gives her authentic and clear information as to why it will be 15 minutes, and then perhaps a gesture to compensate her for my trouble, that negative experience or what could have been a negative experience actually shifts to being a really positive experience.   So, with the fridge, if someone simply sends an email and says, “We're really sorry, we typically try to deliver things in two days. But you've had public holidays and long weekends in Australia and so that's pushed out delivery times out, and it'll be a week, very sorry.”   That information, when it's communicated authentically has the power to reset her expectations as a consumer. And so, it's not about getting it perfect every time as a brand, you don't have to get it right every time.   It's like parenting; we're often so hard on ourselves when we do something kind of not quite right by our kids. But you can make it right, you can have an authentic conversation and provide the information with clarity and with transparency and that will have a really powerful effect and reset your customers' expectations so they can still have a really good experience, even when it falls short of what they originally expected.   What is a Promise?   Me: Another great insight that I took from reviewing your book was there's a point in the book where you say the only reason anyone buys anything is to make their life better, which I suppose is almost the equivalent of people go into businesses to solve a problem. Most businesses were created with the intention of solving somebody's problem, whatever it is that your business solves. But what really intrigued me further to what you said in terms of making their lives better, is that the challenge to sell more reduces it down to two things showing the buyer that you're going to make their life better and delivering on your promise.   Now, could you define for our listeners what a promise is because I've been through many different customer service trainings in different industries, and I find that people are not clear on what a promise is. And they don't realize that you don't actually have to say the word I promise for the customer to view it as a commitment that you're making to fulfill something that they're requesting.   Anna stated that is such a great question and such an interesting pathway to explore. So, a promise is certainly not a contract. So, without even whether you explicitly and overtly know that you're making a promise to a customer or not, you are even if they don't sign a contract with you.   So for example, things like if you think about someone coming to your website for the very first time, in the first 10 seconds, that site visitor gets a sense of what your brand promise is, and that's made up of a few ingredients, it's made up of the styling on your website, your choice of imagery, your choice of font, your choice of colour, your logo, your hero value proposition tagline, all of those things combined into effectively, very quickly delivering a snapshot of what your brand promise is.   So maybe to correlate this to an example we'll all be familiar with. When you meet someone in person for the very first time, your subconscious mind processes a whole vast range of variables and you make a snap judgement, you go, “Yeah, this person is the kind of person that I would like to have a conversation with and maybe if that goes well, we'll go out for a coffee and maybe we could be friends.” Or “This person is just creepy; I'm going to run the other way. You know what I'm not having that this, a cup of coffee is not in our future.” And so, your subconscious mind is really good at doing that when we meet people in real life. And whether we think about it or not, we do exactly the same thing when we see a brand in a digital space.   And so, the brand promise is really the combination of all of those things and when you start looking for it, you'll notice it. So, when you go to a brand like Porsche, the imagery on the site, the particular choice of fonts and colours and the logo design, all look like a very expensive and exclusive brand. When you go to something like Kia, it's a much more approachable brand and this is all done through very subtle things like fonts and colours and the brand promise.   She works with high growth brands in Australia and out of New Zealand, and where they often will spend a lot of time and it's an easy thing to talk about, and a hard thing to execute on, is refining the value proposition. And so, that value proposition is the explicit articulation of how you're going to make someone's life better. And she finds where brands often get stuck; they get stuck in two ways.   One is that they think about the features of their product and don't recognize that features don't make someone else's life better. No one has a pair of Jimmy Choo heels because they have a high heel stiletto on them, they buy those heels, because of how those heels will make them feel, and how they will be perceived when they own that particular item.   And so, we forget this when we design our websites, and when we design our electronic marketing campaigns, and social media campaigns and so on, and we talk about features instead of what is the feeling? How really do you make someone's life better? She doesn't choose Skype or Zoom because they have a particular telephonic service with some grade of how fast they transmit her voice. She doesn't even know the details. So, she doesn't know what the technical specs for Zoom.   She chooses Zoom because it's easy to use and she can click one button and connect with someone on the other side of the world. And so, Apple is probably an amazing example of at scale when we first stopped talking about features and started talking about how the product makes our life better. And so, to come back to the original question, what is the brand promise that we make? It's all the subconscious things that someone will experience in the first 10 seconds on your website and that's made up of fonts and styling and colours and imagery, and also your value proposition that you articulate in that hero part of your website.   What is the ADORE Process and the Milestones in the Journey of That Process?   Me: So, that dovetails us nicely into the core of your book is based on the ADORE Process. Could you take our listeners through what that process is and what are the milestones in the journey of that process?   Anna stated that the ADORE Process and a few people have asked her what does ADORE stand for. And again, she's like; actually, it stands for nothing. But in technology, everyone needs an acronym and so here we go, we've got an acronym called ADORE.   So, the ADORE Process looks exactly at how we form relationships as humans. So, as soon as she walks you through it, she'll be able to map that to, “Oh, yeah, that's exactly how I form relationships with anyone I meet in real life.” And it translates it into milestones which we can affect and tune in digital, and also milestones where you can measure the performance for your particular brand against each of the milestones.   And the milestones and there is six of them. The very first one is zero seconds. So, zero seconds is simply the opportunity to have a site visitor come to your website. So loosely speaking, it's all of your marketing activities, all of your social media, everything that you do to drive a stranger to your website, the moment that they land on your website, that's zero seconds.   Then that first impression moment is the first 10 seconds that they're on your site and this is where they make a snap judgement, whether you like the fact or not people make snap judgments and they'll decide whether they're going to spend more time exploring your brand and getting to know your brand, or whether they're going to go to the next tab, and your closest competitor is always only ever in the next tab and sort of say, “No thanks, this isn't the brand for me.” So, 10 seconds is that first impression sort of moment, first date, if you like.   And another thing which she often sees when she works with brands is that they want to tell you their entire life story on that first date. You're like, hang on, I'd never do that in real life. But how is it okay in digital, or they'll lead with something like a “Book a call right now,” and ideally one that pops up on the way upside the moment that you land there and you're like, hang on a second. If she was meeting someone for the very first time and they went on a first date, and she said to the person sitting across from her, “Hey, you seem kind of nice. Do you want to move in and have seven kids together?”   So again, in person, we know how to moderate this, we know that relationships take a certain cadence, and we don't violate those things in real life. But we do on a website, we're perfectly happy to put a pop up that says, book a call right now, the minute that she lands on a website she's never been to, like, “Hang on a minute, let me get to know your brand first. And once I know your brand, a little bit better than ask me that question.”   So, zero seconds, the arrival, 10 seconds is your first date, then three minutes, is that moment where someone has taken the time to actually get to know your brand a little bit more. So again, in human terms, it's probably that three to six month mark, where you're like, “Yeah, we've got to know each other a little bit, it feels about right, maybe now we'll have a conversation about moving in together.” But don't do that on the first date. And so, that three minute mark is that moment where someone has explored your brand. At this point, maybe they've looked at your features. At this point, maybe they've looked at, can I make this work for me. And if you've positioned those first few elements on your website in the right order, and in the right way, and you're respecting how someone forms a relationship with your brand, the very natural next step is for them to want to sign up, they'll want to try your product or service, they'll want to perhaps buy the first T shirt that you're selling, they're ready for that next step.   And so, that sign up moment, it's like moving in together, it's a definite sign of commitment. And it's super, super important to take note of that, because your customer is now saying, “I am making an active commitment to your brand.” And so, when you've got that, you know for sure you've got someone who's interested, someone who's spent the time getting to know you, they're a captive audience. The rest is easy, assuming that you've got a really good product or service, which most brands she works with have amazing products and services, and they are just not sure how to develop that relationship with their customers.   And so, to give an example, she had a brand that she was working with, and they literally after the signup process, they were losing 95% of their people. So, they were spending all the money on marketing, all of their branding and their brand promise and the way they told their story was all done super well, they were getting a lot of customers to sign up each month. And then it was like a 95% drop off. And it was like, “Oh my God, what's happening here.” And they changed a couple of really small things. And so, if you look at this part in the book, it will actually give you tangible tips for what to look for when things are going wrong, and what you can change. And this particular brand, they increase their revenue by $50,000 a month by changing a couple of buttons. So, these things do make a difference. And whether consciously or subconsciously, we do respond to digital, and to the formation of relationships with brands and digital, much like we do in real life when it's a human and a human interacting.   But we've got zero seconds, the arrival, we've got 10 seconds, which is your first date, we've got three minutes, which is where you've told your brand story, sign up, which is your first moment of active kind of commitment. And then after that it's easy street, all you then need to do is build into your product the right levers to create an upgrade, to create a repeat buy, to get the customer to pull more money out of their wallet and experience more and more of your product over time and so that's upgrade. And then ultimately where you want to drive your customers to if your growth strategy is based on forming relationships, and that loyal customer base is to get referrals. And referrals are really important because a referral from someone that you trust shortcuts that whole customer journey by about 60%. And so, people will take shortcuts on the getting to know you part and go straight to sign up if the recommendation comes from a trusted party.   So, that's basically the steps and in the book, in the ADORE Process part, which is the middle part of the book, it shows you for each of those steps, how do you measure success? So which of your website metrics do you look at to see whether you're performing well or not performing well. And that's important because when you make a change to your website, or you hire an agency to make some changes, you want to have tangible and objective proof that whatever updates you made are actually creating a positive effect on your conversion rate so that you're getting a good return on the investment that you're putting in to developing those digital assets that you own.   App, Website or Tool that Anna Absolutely Can't Live Without in Her Business   When asked about an online resource that she cannot live without in her business, Anna stated that she was thinking about this the other day, and really, honestly, the thing she can't live without is probably email but that's not going to be much help because everybody uses email. So, something she's gotten into recently is a product called Shortform. And Shortform gives you a summary of some of the best books on the planet and the summaries are just fantastic. So, if you're starting out and you haven't read any books at all, Shortform might not be for you but if you've read a bunch of books, and you've got an interest in business books, or how to grow businesses, and you've read a few things, Shortform is excellent because it fills in the blanks, and really tells you very quickly what the difference between this book is, and other things, which you may have read.   So that's something she enjoys and they're always adding new books into their library there. And so, in like 10 minutes, you can get the gist of someone's amazing new ideas without reading a whole book so it's a little bit of a hack and that's something she's enjoying. Other than that, she listens to podcasts, typically podcasts that are recommended by other people. So again, showing that once we get a good recommendation from someone, we do shortcut that whole decision making process and just go straight to, “Yes, this is the thing for me.” Probably, that email and Shortform would be her indispensable tools at the moment.   Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Anna   When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Anna shared that she's definitely been very impacted by books she read early in her career and these would be the classics, things like Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not by Robert T. Kiyosaki, the idea that things that you buy are either an asset or they're not an asset and the idea that you can actually design your life so that you're not dependent on a paycheck. So, that was super influential for her.   Other than that, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition by Robert Cialdini, she thinks if you're an entrepreneur, and you're designing product, and you're selling product, and you have an interest in understanding how do people make decisions and how do I, what levers do I have to influence them to make the decision that I want them to make? This is indispensable. And so, Robert Cialdini wrote the first edition of the book in the early 80s and it's still true today. And it's a fantastic book.   Other than that, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert is a really, really beautifully written book, and it personifies ideas and it talks about concept that as people, we inhabit these human forms, but ideas are these organisms that float around us, and an idea might come and tap you on the shoulder and if you're not ready for it, it's going to go ahead and find some other human hosts that's going to bring it to life. And so, when an idea pops into your head, it's really up to you to take that idea and nurture it and grow it into something that becomes a business. And if you're not prepared to do that, don't be surprised that someone else halfway across the world seemingly has the same idea and brings it to life. So, she just thought it was a beautifully written and lovely book. Heaps of others, but those are probably her top three picks for the moment.   What Anna is Really Excited About Now!   Anna stated that the biggest thing that's happening for them at the moment is that they're taking Digital Brand Romance and they're converting that into a SaaS product called Rammp. And so, people love reading books, and so on, but what she finds is that most people want a solution that is automated and that they can deploy to their business that will work for them when they're focusing on the other important things in their business.   And so, Rammp does that, it takes the principles that are outlined in the book, those six milestones and it connects to your website statistics and then it will show you each month what are the most impactful and lowest hanging fruit that you can address to improve the relationship with your customers, and thereby increase your conversion rates. So they're bringing that to life. If you look at the website today, it's still a landing page but they should be launching that at the end of June. So, that's definitely a very, very exciting thing that's happening.   The other very exciting thing, which is possibly only exciting to her is that she has finally found another gym that she's excited to go to because she's been in fitness limbo for the last couple of years, just kind of on maintenance and alive, she's really looking for something that's going to be inspiring and she did that this morning. So, she's super stoked about that.   Where Can We Find Anna Online   LinkedIn – Anna Harrison Website – www.rammp.com   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Anna Uses   When asked about a quote or saying that she tend to revert to, Anna stated a 100% and you could see her right now, you'll see that it's written on a card and stuck to her computer and the quote is, “Merely do the work.” Some days you're super motivated and you're excited and everything is going really well, on those days it's easy to do the work.   But some days, whatever, the stars have not lined up and you might feel a bit naa and you're like, “Why am I even doing this, there's so many competitors that are better, etc, etc.” And on those days, just put your head down and do the work, you started the business that you're doing for good reasons, there is no one else in the world who is more passionate and better position to be working on what you're working right now. And on the tough days, just put your head down and merely do the work. Life and business and pretty much everything we do is a marathon, it's just a marathon and you're doing a marathon, it's just put one foot in front of the other and eventually, things brighten up, you got your inspiration back and you finish the race, or the run, or whatever it is that you were working on. So merely do the work.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners   Links Digital Brand Romance: How to Create Lasting Relationships in a Digital World by Dr. Anna Harrison Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition by Robert Cialdini Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!