Podcasts about User experience

User accessibility is not only something you should do, but is something that legally needs to be done. Your website and digital marketing should be accessible! The great thing is that this helps with your customer conversions as well as SEO. Learn why accessibility is something you should care about and get Ambers tips for how to update your website. https://thefirstclick.net/164

#75 - Plaudertaschen meets Sparkassen Innovation Hub - Was wir aus dem Innovationscenter Dänemark mitgebracht habenIn der 12. Folge unseres gemeinsamen Podcasts mit dem Sparkassen Innovation Hub wollen wir Euch einen kleinen Einblick in das Banking und Digital-Ökosystem in Dänemark geben. Genau dahin, genauer gesagt nach Kopenhagen, hat der Sparkassen Innovation Hub mit zahlreichen Kolleginnen und Kollegen aus Sparkassen, kürzlich eine Impuls-Reise gemacht. Es ging im Kern darum, herauszufinden, was genau das digitalste europäische Land gemäß einer aktuellen EU-Auswertung genau anders macht, und vor allem wie der Danishway of Banking aussieht - kurz: starke Impulse für die Arbeit an Innovationen und das Banking von morgen zu erhalten. Ob das geklappt hat, ob man das ganze tatsächlich Impuls-Reise nennen muss und was genau die Dänen alles anders machen - genau darüber sprechen wir und zwar mit unseren beiden Gästen Anne-Sophie Haas und Thorsten Bambey. Fragen, Anregungen und Feedback sehr gerne an mail@plaudertaschen-podcast.de Viel Spaß beim hören! Euer Plaudertaschen-Team ------------------------- Über unseren Gast:Thorsten Bambey ist seiner Bezeichnung nach Innovation Evangelist beim Sparkassen Innovation Hub - wird auch als die gute Seele bezeichnet und wird uns sicher auch gleich erklären, was ein Innovation Evangelist denn genau macht. Anne-Sophie Haas ist aus dem Innovationsmanagement der Sparkasse KölnBonn und dort Co-Koordinatorin im Sparkassen Innovation Hub. Über den Sparkassen Innovation Hub:Der Sparkassen Innovation Hub ist das Innovation Lab der Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe und damit der Think Tank, der sich mit Konsumenten, technischen Innovationen und digitalem Banking beschäftigt. Er ist Anfang 2017 als gemeinsame Initiative der Sparkassen, des DSGV, des DSV, der Finanz Informatik und der Star Finanz ins Leben gerufen worden. Der S-Hub ist ein Geschäftsbereich der Star Finanz, Deutschlands führendem Anbieter von Online- und Mobile-Banking-Lösungen. Aktuell arbeiten drei interdisziplinäre Teams in agilen Projektstrukturen zusammen. Dabei sind jeweils die folgenden Fachkompetenzen vertreten: Product Owner, Business Development, User Experience, Design sowie Frontend- und Backend-Entwickler. Insgesamt arbeiten aktuell 30 Mitarbeiter vor Ort in Hamburg. https://sparkassen-hub.com/ Folge direkt herunterladen

Jeder und jede hat eine Meinung zum Thema HMI, jede und jeder hat Emotionen, wenn er oder sie mit Technologie interagiert. Das ist gut so, führt aber nicht zu Lösungen, die größere Nutzergruppen zufriedenstellt. Ich stelle sechs Parameter vor, mit denen Du HMIs analysieren und entwickeln kannst.

Commercial Buildings are terrible at User Experience. Fact. How do we fix that? Memoori sat down with Kim Feenstra Kuiper, Senior User Researcher at GoodNotes App about the process of designing user-centric software applications and what the building/property industry can learn in order to create a better experience for their users. Kim gives a detailed description of how she collects data points from users and describes methodologies to follow in the design process. Anyone interesting in understanding how we can create better experiences for building users will find this podcast interesting.

Great products solve real problems, are understandable by users, and perform their tasks as easily and efficiently as possible. In order to be successful, product managers and leaders need to understand their customers and their pain points. So, how can product managers and leaders ensure that they provide their consumers with a seamless user experience? This week, Product Talk host and Product Leader, Neha Shah, interviews Rent the Runway Sr. VP of Consumer Product Preethi Ramani on how to create a seamless user experience. 

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor NumbersIf you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends October 1st 2022. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: https://www.pensthorpe.com/about-us-history/https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/business/why-running-pensthorpe-near-fakenham-makes-you-feel-good-by-1395106https://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/content/articles/2008/05/23/springwatch_jordans_interview_20080523_feature.shtml Leading the flock are the enigmatic owners of Pensthorpe; Bill and Jordan. Prior to purchasing Pensthorpe in 2003, the couple lived in Bedfordshire where Deb had a successful career in fashion and photography, and Bill ran Jordans, the hugely successful cereal business he co-founded with his brother.Wanting to raise their two children in Deb's native Northfolk, they jumped at the chance to buy Pensthorpe and combine Bill's knowledge of sustainable farming practices with their longstanding love of nature.They've been part of the landscape ever since. Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with Bill and Deb Jordan, owners of Pensthorpe. Bill and Deb share the heartwarming highs and lows of creating this multi-award-winning tourist attraction. Have a listen in to find out what part Bill Oddie played in it all. If you like what you hear, subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Bill and Deb, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's absolutely lovely to see you both. We're going to start off with a few small icebreaker questions just to get us warmed up. So we're going to talk a little bit about cereal today. It's going to be part of the conversation. I want to know, what has been the worst food that you've both ever eaten?Bill Jordan: Oh, my word. I think school food didn't exactly do much for us.Kelly Molson: School dinners?Deb Jordan: One of my flatmates once complained that I had a tin of meatballs in the fridge that was open. So now I realise that many moons ago, I did used to eat badly in London.Kelly Molson: All right. Tins of cold meatballs in the fridge. To be fair, I quite like cold beans straight out of the tin.Bill Jordan: Oh, really.Kelly Molson: So I'd probably go for the cold meatballs, actually.Bill Jordan: Yeah.Kelly Molson: I might be all right with that. Let's go for your unpopular opinions.Deb Jordan: An unpopular opinion. I get very wound up about spin. I really do go off on one. It could be about anything where people actually say, so they pick up on something like children using mobile phones. Therefore, they will say that their business prevents that, and it's all to do with the fact that X, Y, Z. I just get frustrated when people use something that they've heard of in the press that is good for people. Even if it's like a cereal packet where it's saying this is healthy for you. Probably because I'll know that Bill will tell me exactly how many calories it's got in it. It's all a load of rubbish. But that is an opinion I get very wound up about. I hope I don't then fall into the frame of actually being accused of doing the same thing.Bill Jordan: I think when I heard the question, I got slightly concerned that I'd reached a sort of age where I didn't even recognise whether the views are unpopular or not.Kelly Molson: We're all getting there, Bill. Oh, I love that. Well, that's a good opinion to have. I wouldn't say that's very unpopular, but I think that's a good opinion to have.Bill Jordan: Might be the definition of being out of touch.Kelly Molson: I doubt that very much considering what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about Pensthorpe today. I mean, I think it's one of Norfolk's best-kept secrets. Whenever I talk about Pensthorpe, I have been describing it to people recently and telling them how fabulous it is, and they go, "I've never been there. We go to Norfolk quite a lot." And I'm like, "Right. Well, you have to go there now." So I've convinced at least 10 people recently that Pensthorpe is top of their list of places to go. It's just phenomenal.Kelly Molson: But, I want to know what were your backgrounds prior to Pensthorpe? Because they're very different. They weren't in the attractions industry at all, were they?Deb Jordan: No, not at all. I think Bill needs to lead on that one.Bill Jordan: Okay. Well, mine, for about 30 ... Probably more years than that. I'd founded and was running with my brother a breakfast cereal company. I guess you'd call it such a natural food company in the days when there was a natural food movement. There was quite a reaction against factory food, which of course still goes on today. So my background was much more about food and land use and farming practice and local food and nutrition and all of those things, which I still find very fascinating. Although, thankfully, I'm not that closely involved as I used to be, because it's hard work.Kelly Molson: I can imagine that's hard work. Did you come from a farming background prior to that? Did you grow up in that environment?Bill Jordan: Yeah. We all grew up at on a flour mill, which still exists in Bedfordshire. Our mum still lives there. She's 96.Kelly Molson: Oh, wow.Bill Jordan: She's lived in the same house for over 70 years. Yeah, we were lucky. We got brought up as kids kind of above the shop, really. It was a mill that made white flour. It made brown flour. It made animal feed. It was an interesting place to live. A lot going on.Kelly Molson: Wow. You were kind of in it, right? You lived and worked there?Bill Jordan: Yeah. School holidays, you had to bag up animal feed or pack flour or something. It was kind of went with living there, really.Kelly Molson: Yeah. Deb, what about you? What's your background?Deb Jordan: Well, I was very lucky to be born and live in Ringstead in Norfolk, which is only about 20 minutes, 25 minutes drive away. My dad was a farmer on the Le Strange Estate. The farm ran at the back of old Hunstanton. Yeah, idyllic. In the summer holidays, we were very lucky to just be out, left to just roam. I think actually once I ran away. I found a really nice spot to sit for the day. And by about 7:00 PM, I thought, "Actually, nobody cares. Nobody's noticed." And that did actually really make me laugh. I remember saying to my mum when I got back, "Did you not know? Did you not notice I'd run away? So she'd, "No. I know you went out in a very mad mood. But no, I hadn't noticed yet, darling. The good thing is you were hungry and here you are."Deb Jordan: I just remember thinking, "Gosh, when you look back, how lucky that was." It sort of made you stand on your own two feet. You used to get involved with a bit of wild oat picking and have jumps around the farm, around the house. But sadly ... I say sadly because it didn't really suit me. I was sent away to boarding school quite a long way away and was rather rebellious and unhappy, but a very privileged start. I think that probably stays with you forever about the nature and the fun. There's so much to explore, and you don't really need too much else other than a bicycle and the nature to make a very happy childhood.Kelly Molson: Oh God, that's really lovely. Ringstead is a very beautiful place as well. There's a lovely pub there called The Gin Trap that I've been to a number of times. Yes.Deb Jordan: Spent a lot of my youth in The Gin Trap. Yes. Sipping gin and orange or something ghastly with a boyfriend from cross lake.Kelly Molson: Oh, what a lovely, so that's really nice to hear, actually. I didn't realise how kind of embedded nature had been into both of your childhoods really, which I guess brings us to Pensthorpe. And you purchased it in, it was in 2003, wasn't it? And it was originally a bird reserve. What made you make the jump into buying something like this and you know, how did that happen?Bill Jordan: Well, it was a very unusual day when we first got to see the Pensthorpe, we had the children were, I don't know, kind of able to walk by that time. And we had a day in wandering around Pensthorpe.Deb Jordan: Six and eight.Bill Jordan: Six and eight. There you go. I'm no good at it. So we had a day looking around Pensthorpe which kind of came out of the blue and no, I think we were sort of rather bowled over, knocked out by it all. It was, the kids was surprisingly quiet and reflective. We were having a good time and we'd read somewhere that it was possibly up for sale. So when we were walking out of Pensthorpe, we asked the lady behind the counter, "Is it still for sale? Has it been sold?" And they said, "Well, you better go and speak to that gentleman over there. That's Bill Mackins." And we did. And then we kind of got pulled into the whole site. Yes that's how it happened.Deb Jordan: It was actually, Bill had been looking for some years. He was always interested in properties for sale in Norfolk. I think he may have been thinking that his connection with Jordan's and conservation and great farming and that he, I think he was already feeling he needed to put his money where his mouth was and start something to do with food in the countryside. A bit like the sort of taste of north, but type thing I think was going on in the back of his head. So he was often buzzing around on the bicycle looking and when Pensthorpe came up, I actually saw it and he was looking at my magazine and I said, "No way, no, no, no." So actually then we were visiting Norfolk because we did a lot with our children to see my parents and it sort of came to that.Deb Jordan: Well, why don't we just go and look? And I really wasn't very on board at all, but I have to admit that once here it's an extraordinary site and it sort of pulls you in. It's a place that you sort of, not too sure why, but you feel very connected to it. And I think that it really surprised us that day that it took us in and it took us along and then meeting the owner and him connecting with the children. It must have been about this time of year because then obviously the birds molt and there was a lot of feathers that the children have just spent the whole time looking for feathers and putting them in a bag. And we had to sort of say to the owner, look, we haven't been plucking your birds. This whole collection is then explaining to us the molting, that how at this time of the year, everything, all the ducks and geese use their feathers and can't fly.Deb Jordan: So they're all on the ground. And it's extraordinary at the moment how we've got hundreds of gray legs and geese all sitting, waiting for that time where the feathers have grown through and they can then take off again. But it was just that he then had some peacock feathers and said, "Look here kids take these home." And he knew my dad. So he was saying that he had known my dad before he died. And so there was a sort of an immediate connection there. And then I think he could see that Bill was very interested. And then he suggested before we left, because we'd asked about it being up to sale, he told us that it'd fallen through and he suggested that Bill meet somebody called Tim Neva, that was working in Cambridge and was working locally. And that sort of rather started the ball rolling. Yeah.Bill Jordan: Yes. I think another sort of link had been the fact that with Jordan, so amongst other things, we'd done quite a lot of work on the supply chain for the cereals. So we were working by then with quite a lot of farmers who were quite conservation minded and were putting habitats onto their farm for increasing wildlife and doing all of those sort of things, which of course was being done at Pensthorpe. So it was an aspect of what we'd been used to in the food industry. And it was done being done very well here at Pensthorpe. So yeah, that's kind of how it fitted in as well.Kelly Molson: What a wonderful story. You went to visit and then ended up buying the place. I love that.Bill Jordan: Well, it was bit of a shock. It wasn't kind of on the cards that's for sure.Deb Jordan: No, I think it was funny things to, you could have looked back and at the time I think we could see the beauty of the place, the fact that you thought, oh my goodness, Nancy's bringing up a family here and getting connected to all this and the bird life and everything else. I think what probably happened, which was, in hindsight, wasn't so good was that this connection with somebody that was a very good salesperson on behalf of filmmakers, who was saying I'll bring my family from Brisbane in Australia because they ran the Mariba wetland out there. So I can run this for you. So we actually spent a lot of time working with Tim prior to buying it and hearing how he was going to bring his wife and do the total daily running of the place. And that it would be Deb, you can get involved in the hub and bringing in crafts people and local produce and local gift and Bill can get involved in farm when we see him, because it's going to, you were still at George.Deb Jordan: And it wasn't. So we signed on the dotted line up on December 20th, 2002. And about three weeks, four weeks later, we had a phone call from Tim Neva there about saying, "I'm really sorry, but my wife, my boys are older than I thought. They're very at home in Queensland. And Gwyneth doesn't feel that it's actually something she could do at the minute, but I will be very supportive and I will come and be helpful." So that was a big shock. And so we put the house up for sale and pretty well moved during Jan, Feb, March 2003.Bill Jordan: I think within about 10 weeks, poor Deborah had to move the children from one school to another and make sure he got some housing. You trying to sell the housing you're in Bedfordshire. So it was a bit of a traumatic time.Kelly Molson: Oh my goodness.Bill Jordan: Amusingly, our children, children. They're big. Now they remind us every now and then that what we put them through and shouldn't we be guilty. We have to take it on the chin every time they raise it.Kelly Molson: I bet. I mean, that's incredible. Isn't it? So you, so suddenly you've gone from, oh, okay, well we're going to do this, but we've got someone that will manage it for us to that's it. They're not coming and you are in it. This is your deal. You've got to do it. So Bill, were you still juggling Jordans at the same time? So you had,Bill Jordan: Yeah.Kelly Molson: You had both responsibilities.Bill Jordan: Jordans were still going full ball. Yeah.Kelly Molson: How did you manage that?Bill Jordan: Well the usual thing, I handed it over to the lady on my left here.Kelly Molson: Of course.Bill Jordan: We done most of it since then.Kelly Molson: Wow, Deb. That was, so that was not what you were expecting at all. And then suddenly you've had to completely change your life, move your children, move them to school, move home, and now you are managing a bird reserve.Deb Jordan: Yeah, we were very naive and it was a struggle. Yeah. I think we're both quite resilient and there really wasn't much that could be done other than let's just crack on. And just try and keep really focused and learn from all the people that were already here. And Tim was definitely in the mix, but I hadn't realised that it would mean moving that quickly or looking for somebody to manage it. It was pretty full on to suddenly find yourself as the person. They had an amazing book in the shop, which was all the garden and it was wildlife of the waterfowl of the world. And I remember putting it under my bed and got some binoculars and looked out at the lake every morning to see what was on there to identify what we'd got.Deb Jordan: And then it was such a small team. There was just four ladies in the shop that ran seven days. Two of them did. You know, and we had about two, two wardens or yes on the farm banding Paul and you know, it was, it was just a very small team and they were really helpful and they explained what I was meant to be doing what happened. And then Tim came and went and we sort of, and it grew. We didn't really have much of a plan I don't suppose. Bill kept saying to me all along whenever I said, "Look, we need a five or a 10 year plan." Or we just sort of, it evolved. We worked with the team and we started to sort of move slightly more towards trying to, we realised our kids aren't kids all get nature you don't have to explain it to them.Deb Jordan: It's just ingrained in them. So we realised we haven't got any young members. That everybody was older and more bird related. We'd really upset one or two of them who wrote in, we just, we had a woman that would offer to become a volunteer here. And she was a fabulous lady and she'd actually been GM at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. And she said, "Look Deb it's really important. We need to get more of a younger generation here. And so what we're going to do is we're going to do play. I worked at Fowl and Wetlands trust. And they did Wellie Boot Land and I'll eat my hat if it doesn't work." And Bill said, "I'll eat my hat if it does work." So we had to park Bill, luckily because Bill went home every Monday night, we'd sort of work on it quietly, Veronica, I and Mark, as to how we were going to get round Bill.Deb Jordan: But by actually investing in an outdoor play area that was as though it was in the water as though it was a nature child. We encouraged people to bring their kids so that by getting them further out into the park, they could learn more about nature. But actually sometimes I think it's the parents that you have to encourage to come to a nature reserve, because they sort of think, what am I going to do with the kids and the kids actually get it and love it. So and one or two of the members that sort of said, I'm sorry, but we are now dropping out. We think that you are making a big mistake. I'm pleased to say that I bumped into the grandparents one day who said, look, I'm going to own up we're the people that wrote to you and were very rude, but this is Dudley and he's our grandson and we can't get enough enjoyment and make enough lovely memories with Dudley. So we forgive you.Kelly Molson: Oh, that's so nice.Deb Jordan: Yeah.Bill Jordan: So we found quite a lot of the heavy duty birders might have started a bit nervous when they saw children's play and different things happening. But yeah, just as Deb explains, after a bit, they realised that yeah, they got grandchildren and here was somewhere that worked for them and you know, actually got to a couple more levels of generations within their family. So we were lucky there. And within the year I told Deb that it was all my idea anyway.Deb Jordan: As you do.Bill Jordan: As I like to.Kelly Molson: It's interesting because earlier you used the word reflective about Pensthorpe and that's very much how I felt when I visited there. And what I found really interesting is that the children's play areas because now you have an indoor play area and the outdoor play area, they have been designed so well that they don't detract from that reflective feeling. Does that make sense? Like I could, I came on my own, I didn't bring my daughter, but I could still see how you could bring your children there and just have the most brilliant day of fun. But it is still a very calm and peaceful. It has a very calm and peaceful energy to it, the place that, and that's, I think that really comes through the minute you arrive. That's that's how I felt.Deb Jordan: Yeah. I think when we tried to look at the site, which is really unique, because it's got so many different habitats and we sort of said to ourselves, "So how can we best use this?" And I think what we've tried to do is just like the play, which looks very natural. We've tried to continue the journey and so that you leave the play and then you head towards the wetland area. But there is a diversion where at the top of the Sandhill, there's in the wood, on the top of the Sandhill, overlooking the lake, there's this amazing den building area. And when you go up there you know very well that this is a family affair. There's no way that the kids have done the den building, but you pass through an area where we cut into the wetland and put a big ponder thing.Deb Jordan: And then we sort of take you further along to a wood at the end where if a huge tree has fallen in the middle of it Richard leaves it there. And then the root base is all explained as to what's going on there, wildlife and we mow a path to it. So you can actually know that you're meant to get on the tree and run along the trunk. And, and I think, in fact we had a meeting here two weeks ago, Eco Attractions and they were saying, which was the best thing I'd heard, best acclaim I'd had. They said, "We've been out there Deb. And we sort of get what you're talking about, that you come across all this wild play, this just natural what's there is being used to tell a story, but have fun with. And we think that the best way of explaining you is a bit like the lost gardens of Halligan." Well boy, that was-Bill Jordan: We didn't mind that at all.Deb Jordan: We didn't mind that.Kelly Molson: That is perfect.Deb Jordan: What we are trying to do is keep the natural, but just encourage people to go out and get further and further from the hub with the trails that Natalie does and her team, which is so brilliant.Kelly Molson: Yeah, it definitely comes across. So that is a perfect description of how I felt when I was there. I want to go back a little bit though, because we've kind of jumped forward. Let's go back to 2008 because you get a call from Springwatch. That must have been pretty exciting at the time. What did that do for the venue?Bill Jordan: Well, perhaps even before answering that, you ought to hear how it actually happened.Kelly Molson: Okay. Ooh, share!Bill Jordan: To tell you about a conversation we had with.Deb Jordan: Yeah. We'd been told that Bill Oddie wanted to come to Pensthorpe for his really wild show. And he was here specifically to look at corn crakes, which we were breeding and releasing with the RSPB and [inaudible 00:24:25] isn't it? And so he came and I hadn't really seen much of him because he'd been whisked away and he'd met the agriculturalist and the team and looked at the corn crakes and then he'd had a little wander as Bill does. And then he came back to the hub and I thought, oh, I'm not very good at selling myself, but there is nobody else. You just got to do this. I went out with my camera and I just said, look I'm Deb Jordan, and I hope you don't mind. Could I take your photos for our newsletter because it's so exciting to have you here.Deb Jordan: And he did this amazing sort of thumbs up picture and he said, "I'm going to do this. And then you can write the copy dead because I absolutely love this place. You can say whatever you like and I'll be happy." Yeah. And it was about three weeks after that, when he'd gone that we received a letter to say, Bill Oddie has put you forward as a possible site for the next move at Springwatch. So I think they'd only done three years in the farm in Devon.Bill Jordan: They had. Yeah.Deb Jordan: And so they felt, and then with it, since then they've moved, I think almost every three years. So when I got this letter, I turned to Martin and said, this is special. Put it under my pillow and it stayed there.Bill Jordan: Until they said, "Yes."Deb Jordan: It stayed there until, until we'd heard we've got it.Kelly Molson: Oh, that's amazing. Well done Bill Oddie. Thumbs up to Bill Oddie. So what, but what did that do that must have brought so much attention to the attraction?Deb Jordan: It was amazing for us because although we can hear sky larks on the hill, above the scrape and we can hear our wildlife and we see our wildlife, it was fantastic for us to really get a grip. But when you see those nests that these guys are so clever and professional about finding, and I remember taking the children to school one day and on the way, hearing Terry Wogan talking about the little ring lovers that had been seen the night before at Pensthorpe on the way to scrape. And I just have pulled into a laid iron with banging my head against the wheel think, oh my God, doesn't get any better than Terry Wogan talking about little ring lovers at Pensthorpe. But it was fabulous. It allowed people to see the breadth of everything, wildlife and habitat wise because it is unusual because we've got the river that runs straight right through the middle. We've got farmland and we've a farm that's running. We've got wetland, we've got gardens, we've got-Bill Jordan: It's 50 acres of lake.Deb Jordan: There's just every sort of habitat you could really want. And I think that allowed people to sort of think, well, that honey little place that we hear about might be worth a visit. So it did help put us on the map.Bill Jordan: I think we all learned quite a lot from it having us when I think there was probably up to 50, 60 people on site producing and one of the sort of excitements of the day for us was that we'd all been pulled back to the cafe building here, which they'd taken over and had about 40 different TV screens and monitors there. And we could see exactly all the bits that they filmed during the day and the night and all the bits that were current from being talked about and the interviews that were happening. Just to see the whole program put together a that end of the day, which was fascinating. And just the way they handled it and the way the sort of information they imparted to audiences is just, no, it was very clever, very clever indeed.Kelly Molson: Was it strange to see the place that you live on the telly?Deb Jordan: Very strange. In fact, one day, I can't quite remember what had happened, but because for eight o'clock they go live. I think it was something like a Muntjack in my garden. It was upsetting me. So I ran as I usually do, got my saucepan and banged my saucepan and prop people. Oh no. You know, and somebody said the next day, what was that noise we had to sort of cover up? But yeah, to tuck into the television, knowing, I mean, some nights we'd creep down and hide or be allowed quite close, but to have those people, to have Kate Humble here, Bill Oddie and then Bill Oddie swapped with Chris Packham. So to have Chris here for a couple of years and yeah, it was very, very special and-Bill Jordan: It was quite a good set for them. They used to, where we're sitting right now, just below us was a sort of room that was completely derelict. So the whole, all of these five cottages here were derelict and poor BBC took pity on us and put a few glass windows and things. And so we wouldn't look too impoverished.Kelly Molson: How kind of them.Bill Jordan: Very kind of them. Yeah.Kelly Molson: I want to ask a little bit, and it's something that you talked about right at the beginning where you said where you grew up, you kind of lived and worked and again now is where you live, and you work. How difficult is it for you to make that work in terms of your kind of like work life balance? Because you are kind of immersed in your business from the minute you wake up in the morning.Deb Jordan: Yeah.Bill Jordan: That not the clever bit, is it? It is hard work. It's quite hard work. And it needs to be mentioned just in case anyone else gets vague and puts their name down for a similar thing. It is hard work and you need to get on well with people and yeah, you are seven days a week, which is how an operation like this has to go. You've got people on site quite a lot of the day when they go home at five o'clock we get the park to ourselves and we can wander around.Deb Jordan: Yeah, I think even as far as the work side of thing, when I look out at the window, I'll immediately think, wow. How lucky. This is extraordinary. And then I'll immediately think all the things that I haven't yet achieved or are on my list for this week that's never long enough. And I think that, on its own, would've been enough. I think, to go through some of the hiccups that life throws to the whole COVID thing, the avian flu thing, those make you pause and really think. That was tough. So we've had some brilliant times, some really big successes, but those things sort of leave you slightly wounded. But there again you've got a big team and everybody's been through the same thing. The whole world has had to reorganise and regroup and move on.Deb Jordan: So yeah, I think that looking forward, one needs to be optimistic that we probably had our fair share of things that haven't really gone our way recently. But on the other hand, there's an awful lot to look forward to. And we've just done the new rebranding and we're very lucky with our marketing team that they totally understand this product. And when you've got a team behind you like that are so inspired by the site and are able to get that message across for all generations, whatever bit it is, whatever age you are, whether it's gardens or birds or families. It's a place for people to come and make memories. And thankfully, hopefully we are now, hopefully COVID is now a thing of the past and sadly avian flu won't be because it's still out there. And it's sort of becoming a real problem. You know, it hasn't really gone away this year for the UK even on Springwatch, we were watching the problems they've got in Scotland at the minute and even slightly closer to home again. So it is something that we are aware of and that we have to sort of rethink going forward, how, how you know, that we work with what we've got.Bill Jordan: We do. But I think we've also sort of figured out that actually there is even more sort of requirement, demand, whatever you call it for getting out there. And nature in its best form and walking and space and all of those things seem to be even more important to a lot of the visitors we talk to.Deb Jordan: Yeah. I think it definitely focused us on what is so special about this place? It's the freedom, it's the feeling of wellness out there, feeling of being able to put things that are worrying you that week away when you come to Pensthorpe. You get out there and you get diverted by the beauty of the place. You know, COVID was really problematic for everybody. I had started six months of chemotherapy in January 2020. So it was going into Norridge weekly for my chemo. So then when the country locked down, I would be sort of driving all with sweet leaf on the bad week. Somebody would be kind enough to drive me and whether it was with my daughter or whoever was kind enough to come with me, it seemed odd to be out on the roads.Deb Jordan: Because the first lock down, there was no one anywhere and you'd get to the hospital and the nurses were amazing, but concerned obviously. It was new to us all. So seeing them afraid but resilient and just pushing on whatever. It was a very unusual time and we did do some furlough, so it was very quiet here because we'd have like one warden in and one avian came and the gardener stayed and the maintenance guy stayed, but everybody in the hub was gone. It was a very extraordinary thing to know that our visitors sadly had no access and were really needing it. There were some very ill people that I was coming across in hospital that were really totally needing nature at that time. And they weren't allowed out in it. So that also, it was a time of sort of looking and seeing, and then the wonderful thing was when we were able to open up, just knowing that at last you could open the doors and people could do what they had so badly been wanting to do and get here and get back outside.Deb Jordan: And so we were very lucky that there was no fear from people that they would come and might get COVID here because there's so much space, as soon as we'd managed to alter the way into the park and get them through quickly. Yeah, sure. It was very rewarding to allow people to.Bill Jordan: Some people were very cautious, wouldn't they, for quite a long time for all the obvious reasons and all worked well.Kelly Molson: Gosh, you've really been through some very big highs and some very big lows there. Haven't you thank you for sharing that with us, Deborah and I'm really glad to see that you are recovered and enjoying your beautiful place again today. So let's talk about the future then, because we've talked loads about what's happened and what, what you've been through the venue has just won some really phenomenal awards. And I have to mention, so you were winners of the Large Visitor Attraction of the Year and winners of the Marketing Camp Campaign of the Year at the East of England Tourism Awards. But you also, you just won a bronze at a very large attractions award, very large toys of award didn't you?Deb Jordan: Yes, we did. We were absolutely thrilled. Yes. We couldn't quite believe that because we'd achieved winner of the east. Then I think they put all the winners of the east and maybe others as well, all the other regions. So you get put into a pot and then the whole thing starts again. And somebody from the nationally won then comes out and looks so you don't know when they're going to come or when they've been. But when we heard that we've been put through, that was extremely exciting. Yeah. To go to Birmingham with the team and accept that award. We had some huge competition with Chester Zoo and actually public actually.Kelly Molson: Oh yes.Bill Jordan: Some pretty huge sort of attractions. So we felt we'd done well to get in that sort of elevated company.Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's wonderful. It was so fabulous to see you get that, get that prize. I was really thrilled for you all. So what next? You've just had a beautiful rebrand and may I say also a beautiful website and it's really, you are in a really wonderful position of kind of exciting new things happening. So what's the plans for the venue?Deb Jordan: Well, I think, the site itself is always going to need investment. Whether it be a cafe which has got a kitchen that needs work on, we're looking at how to get visitors further afield of more exciting things. But those would probably be more about a planning application. We've been working on a new sculpture garden, which is absolutely in its infancy at the moment. And the whole idea is actually to try and encourage sculptors to loan work. So that we've been buying sculpture on a yearly basis, which the visitors seem to love. I often come across the stag with people, with their children sitting on it or the wild boar or whatever it is. And we've just got the new fantasy wide ferry and the dandelions, which are a huge, seem to be pleasing everybody.Deb Jordan: But the whole idea about that garden is actually to try and so that we can, when we've progressed it a little bit further, we can take photos and say to people, look it's not that we wanting to become a sculpture park, but we'd like for our members to be able to see other people's sculpture here, that they could have the opportunity to buy. So that's something that we're working on and it's very much in its infancy.Bill Jordan: There's a sort of ongoing program with reintroductions, which is pencil QNS. We've got a very good agricultural team led by Christy. And yeah, we're working with the MOD, ministry of defense, who are collecting eggs from various different air fields around the east of England. We're then incubating the eggs here, looking after the chicks until they're ready to be released in the washes or Ken Hill farm, which features in spring wash at the moment or this spring anyway. So yeah, there's a lot of that work goes on, which again our visitors, like they can't see a huge amount of it because obviously it's all got to be bio secure, but it's something they like to feel that they're supporting. And it's sort of something that suits the area and yeah, it's something fortunate that some members of the team here are very good at. So yeah, that continues a pace. What else?Deb Jordan: I think it's probably now sitting with the team and working on a more five, 10 year plan where we all know exactly where we're going and we are trying to just even become more wild. It's just trying to find that happy balance of people with giving them something to do that actually helping them want to get their kids further out into.Bill Jordan: Yeah. And there is a lot of space here. We keep going on about that. But you know, the reserve itself is probably 200 acres, but you've got in total more like 500 and we take the discovery tours, land Rover tours out onto the farmland where we're, the wardens are working hard on the habitats there, fulfill encouraging more biodiversity and more wildlife out in that part of the reserve as well. So yeah, it's all part of the same thing and I don't know that we're going to run out things to do.Kelly Molson: No, I think Deb's to-do list is getting longer by the minute. Isn't it? Thank you. This has been so lovely to talk to you. I would implore all of our listeners to please go and visit Pensthorpe because it is a really magical place. Bill Oddie was absolutely right about it. We were at the end of the podcast and we always ask our guests to recommend a book that they love. So it can be something that you've found useful for your career. It can be something that you just love from a personal perspective.Deb Jordan: Well mine, the one I'd suggest that everybody should read, is Fingers In the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham. I think it may have won best book in the wildlife somewhere. But it's a very remarkable, raw. It gets absolutely into the vulnerability of people with Asperger's. And so Chris did this extraordinary program on television, which was Asperger's and me. And I was amazed by that and how he put himself into that position of saying what was going on in his life and how difficult it had been for him. And this book is very much his early memoir, probably from about five to about 17.Deb Jordan: And I think that it's just as any parent, anybody that has any sort of difficulties with actually fitting into a peer group. And I'm sure there are many people that either went through that themselves, when you are reading that book, you actually sort of feel the pain and you feel the vulnerability. And actually, I think it just makes us all as adults, especially aware if we've had that in our family, it helps us understand it. If we haven't got it in our family, it helps us understand it somewhere else. But it is a mesmerising read. So it's not like a chore. Everybody will read it and his descriptions and the way he explains his life in nature. It's just an absolute extraordinary book.Kelly Molson: I have not read that. That's going top of my list. That sounds wonderful. Bill, what about you?Bill Jordan: Well, we've just had a week away, which was rather nice. I read Sitopia by Carolyn Steel, which is a fascinating book. And it's talks about the way that we haven't been valuing food. We should be doing more on a local scale. The regenerational farming thing comes into it. And of course, Jake Finds and Holkham are all involved. And that's very much a Norfolk thing as well. So, no, I thought it was just a brilliant book. And again, we shouldn't be just talking about buying the cheapest food, although for some it's certainly necessary, but we should be looking at the importance of food in the civilisation rather than just what we can get away with and then factory farming and intensive farming it's got to change. Yeah. So that's my book.Kelly Molson: Very topical book. Thank you both. As ever listeners, if you would like to win those books, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words I want Bill and Deb's books, then you will be in with a chance of winning a copy of them. Thank you both so much today. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you. I know that you've got a really exciting summer coming up. There's loads going on at Pensthorpe, and I'm looking forward to coming back and bringing my daughter over to see the place as well. I'll see you then.Deb Jordan: Fantastic. Thank you very much.Bill Jordan: Thank you very much.Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us and remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by rubber cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Oggi inauguriamo una nuova Serie dal nome Highlights - Il meglio del podcast di Copy Persuasivo®.Come puoi intuire dal titolo, è dedicata agli episodi Premium più amati dai nostri ascoltatori. In questo torrido mese di agosto noi non andiamo in vacanza. Anzi, per “rinfrescarti le idee” abbiamo selezionato per te diversi passaggi salienti delle 5 puntate TOP del nostro podcast. Ognuna di queste tratta un tema specifico. Dunque hai l'opportunità unica di accedere GRATIS a una parte dei contenuti riservati ai membri del Copy Persuasivo® Club.Cominciamo subito parlando di UX writing e microcopy con una delle figure più autorevoli del panorama europeo: Serena Giust.Serena é attualmente content design manager in Meta. Nella sua carriera ha anche lavorato per colossi del settore viaggi come Trivago e Booking.com.Inoltre è autrice dei libri UX Writing: micro testi, macro impatto e Design yourself. Crea la tua identità visiva e verbale.Andrea Lisi l'ha intervistata lo scorso autunno in occasione della puntata #204. I due hanno parlato di argomenti che toccano l'esperienza degli utenti sui siti di e-commerce e di come comunicare in modo più efficace grazie ai microtesti.Non sono mancati spunti di riflessione a dir poco sorprendenti…Se vuoi sapere come guidare al meglio i visitatori del tuo sito verso l'azione che desideri, clicca il tasto play del lettore. Oggi hai a disposizione un concentrato di quella intervista, grazie a cui imparare:1 - che cos'è l'UX Writing;2 - qual è la funzione del microcopy e perché può essere la chiave di volta per il tuo business online;3 - cosa sbagliano molti imprenditori e freelance a riguardo;4 - che direzione sta prendendo oggi l'UX design.E se vuoi ascoltare l'intera conversazione tra Andrea e Serena Giust, richiedi accesso al Copy Persuasivo Club®.Potrai ascoltare tutti gli episodi Premium del nostro podcast. Il Club comprende oltre 200 ore di contenuti formativi, tra cui: - lezioni dedicate a tantissimi aspetti che riguardano la gestione aziendale;- tutorial pratici e consigli avanzati sul marketing SfornaClienti;- le serie sui classici “immortali” del marketing (come Breakthrough Advertising, e le Boron Letters).E - scusaci se è poco - la consulenza diretta di Andrea Lisi, a cui accedi in via ESCLUSIVA (valore €500 - GRATIS).Clicca qui sotto per richiedere la tua iscrizione alla membership più avanzata sul copywriting in Italia:https://club.copypersuasivo.comEcco cosa scoprirai nell'episodio di oggi:[3:41] Chi è Serena Giust. Quali risultati ha raggiunto nella sua carriera - e la sua opera divulgativa.[5:35] Cos'è l'UX writing e di cosa si occupa uno scrittore UX. Perché il microcopy è FONDAMENTALE per chiunque voglia garantire un'esperienza risolutiva agli utenti del proprio sito.[6:51] I cambiamenti avvenuti negli ultimi anni in ambito User Experience. Alcuni fattori a cui prestare massima attenzione per convertire con più efficacia al giorno d'oggi.[8:46] Dove intervengono i microtesti: esempi pratici. (E le opportunità di lavoro che ci sono per gli specialisti del settore.)[10:15] Il “limite” - in termini di UX writing - di chi si forma sul marketing diretto, anche se bravo come copywriter. Più due parole sul conversion copywriting. [12:48] I danni che subiscono le piccole e medie imprese quando non investono risorse sufficienti in advertising tracciabile. E la percezione distorta che alcuni imprenditori (purtroppo) hanno del marketing diretto.[17:30] Come rimediare alle lacune del tuo touchpoint in relazione all'UX design e ai microtesti. [19:15] In che direzione sta andando il mondo dell'UX design? Alcune riflessioni sul futuro di questa affascinante materia.►►Entra nel Club di Copy Persuasivo®Sblocca la Serie integrale su Eugene Schwartz, e altre 200 ore di formazione sulla scrittura persuasiva. Così potrai aumentare le tue abilità persuasive e potenziare i tuoi materiali di marketing con l'aiuto dei professionisti della prima Agenzia di Copywriting in Italia: ***Iscriviti ADESSO***https://club.copypersuasivo.com►► Vuoi delegare il tuo marketing aziendale a dei professionisti con esperienza comprovata? (Salvando tempo, soldi e salute mentale…)Affidati al nostro Reparto Marketing Persuasivo:https://marketingpersuasivo.com/►► Se non segui la mia Newsletter, rimedia subito. Inserisci i tuoi dati su https://www.copypersuasivo.com/newsletter (riceverai in omaggio anche i miei “24 Modelli Copia Incolla di Scrittura Persuasiva pronti all'uso”)

This is part 2 of a 3-part series, discussing several key aspects of user experience with the father-daughter duo of Spencer and Ayana Ivery. Spencer began his design journey working at Apple in the late 80s, while his daughter (the Senior Communications Manager for Hack the Hood) decided to follow in her father's footsteps and enter the world of UX consulting. Tune in to hear their stories and partake of special insights to help empower and enrich your UX journey.#ux#eq#podcasts#cxofmradio#cxofm#realuxtalk#worldofux#uxpotpourriCheck out the new World of UX website at https://www.worldoux.com.Visit the UX Uncensored blog at https://uxuncensored.medium.com.

System orientacji wizualnej to już nie tylko tabliczki, strzałki. Powszechne naklejki z piktogramem kobiety i mężczyzny zostały zastąpione eleganckimi grafikami, które idealnie wpisują się w przestrzeń. Systemy orientacji miejskiej stają się istotnym elementem tożsamości firm i miast. Jakie funkcje pełnią systemy orientacji miejskiej? Czy są częścią identyfikacji wizualnej miast, organizacji czy przedsiębiorstw? Jaką pełnią w niej rolę? Jakie wyzwania stoją przed projektantem systemów orientacji wizualnej? Jakie są najważniejsze zasady projektowania systemów orientacyjnych? Na te i wiele innych pytań odpowie dr Małgorzata Ciesielska, projektantka i badaczka. Spotkanie poprowadzi Łukasz Harat, urbanista i socjolog, doktorant na Wydziale Architektura Politechniki Śląskiej. Strefa Designu Uniwersytetu SWPS to projekt popularyzujący wiedzę z zakresu projektowania: produktów, architektury, wnętrz, mody i komunikacji. Pokazuje, czym jest dobre projektowanie i w jaki sposób realizuje ono konkretne potrzeby użytkowników. Więcej informacji o projekcie: design.swps.pl. Interesujesz się designem? Dołącz do nas w grupie Strefy Design Uniwersytetu SWPS (https://www.facebook.com/groups/StrefaDesignu).

Do you ask yourself "What do I want the end-user experience to be?" when designing your forms? What about the heading structure of your document? Chad and Dax take this episode to talk about what you should be asking and how your decisions impact the user's experience. We talk about forms, heading navigation, bookmarks, footnotes and endnotes, and even captions and where to put the accessible transcript when you have one. You definitely do not want to miss our discussion on the Shared Destinations bug in Adobe InDesign as well.

Good morning!  This Saturday morning I reflect on why people, and often times even myself, can't stand crypto and web3.  From rug pulls to bad user experience (UX) design, it seems like we have taken a step back in the name of lofty philosophical ideals of independence and financial autonomy.  Web 2 is soooooo easy!  But convenience is the tool of those who want total control and power.  So how do we get around the difficulty that web3 and the desire for sovereignty bring us?  This difficulty has let in the grifters and scammers to prey on those who are having difficulty learning the web3 language and interface.  Well, first of all, we need to call it out and admit that we are chasing people away and turning people off with our smug commands to DYOR (do your own research)!  After that, we need to figure out how we can make it so ANYONE can use web3.  The steps are being laid and the article I read in the 2nd half by Samantha J. Marin of Bankless DAO states the problem and solution in the most accurate way I can think of.  Thanks Samantha!   Sources: https://freaksnguilds.com/ https://banklesspublishing.com/we-made-the-internet-hard-again/ https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-enforcement-action-charging-six-individuals-cryptocurrency-fraud https://www.justice.gov/criminal-vns/crypto-enforcement                  

UX designer Nathan Powell joins Benedicte and Benedikt to talk about his latest projects, some practical UX tips, and the struggles with onboarding. Nathan's first SaaS product, Nusii Laura Dunn Nathan's UX course for developers, Develop Your UX Nathan's latest SaaS project, Feature Flux Check out Nathan's website Follow Nathan on Twitter Subscribe to Nathan's YouTube channel Nathan Powell, formerly of Nusii, created the business proposal software back in 2013 as a solution to his own pain points as a freelance UX designer. But in 2019, he decided to move on from it and sold everything to his co-founder.Nathan is now making a comeback in the SaaS game with a new UX course, an upcoming book, and Feature Flux. With his new SaaS project, he hopes to make collaboration and revisions easier for UX designers and development teams. Nathan, Benedicte, and Benedikt talk about the biggest UX mistakes SaaS companies are making, their struggles with onboarding and more!

Chit-Chat Chill 唞下啦! | 美國廣東話 Podcast 節目EP84: 丁丁嘅新電動車用家體驗 New E-Vehicle User Experience EP84: 主持人丁丁最近買咗一部Tesla Model 3。零尾氣排放、比燃氣發動機安靜。大大節省燃料成本。 呢啲只是電動汽車 (EV) 嘅一小部分好處。 同汽油動力車相比，電動車的用戶體驗有很多優勢，但並不適合所有人。 今集就等丁丁同你分享我佢嘅新車體驗。| Ding Ding recently bought a Tesla Model 3, which has zero exhaust emissions and is quieter than a gas engine. Huge savings on fuel costs. These are just a few of the benefits of electric vehicles (EVs). Compared to gas-powered vehicles, the EV user experience has many advantages, but it's not for everyone. In this episode, we will share her experience with you. Website: https://Cantocast.FM Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cantocast.fm Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cantocast.fm 丁丁 Instagram: @ikading 大力 Instagram: @derrick_digitalart Lam Instagram: @lam.tse Carmen Instagram: @Carmen_318 #美國 #廣東話 #廣東話Podcast #Cantonese #Canto #Podcast #Cantocast #粵語 #Tesla #特斯拉 #Tesla特斯拉 #特斯拉model3 #租車 #買車 #改車 #電池 #體驗 #EV #電動車 #ChargingStation #充電 #充電站 #Autopilot #自動駕駛 #SelfParking #自動泊車 #無人駕駛 #駕駛系統 00:00 開場: 節目休息原因03:33 丁丁嘅 Tesla 開箱 05:52 車手林志穎車禍意外10:06 自動駕駛及自動泊車14:59 電動車體驗及問題20:49 租車好定買車好31:04 電車充電麻唔麻煩？

We all know what product design is but what does inclusive design, and why does it need to be a priority for product managers? On this week's podcast, we were joined by Saielle DaSilver, Director of User Experience at Cazoo to talk all about designing products for people who might face limitations when using your product.  Featured Links: Follow Saielle on LinkedIn and Twitter | Saielle's website Blossom | Kat Holmes' talk 'Design for 7 Billion. Design for One' | Kat Holmes' Inclusive Toolkit | Kat Holmes' book 'Mismatch' | 'What is Inclusive Design? Principles and Examples' by Justin Morales | Help Saielle with Gender Transition

In this special education of Talkin' Shop, Darren presents the first of a three-part series, discussing severa key aspects of user experience with the father-daughter duo of Spencer and Ayana Ivery. Spencer began his design journey working at Apple in the late 80s, while his daughter (the Senior Communications Manager for Hack the Hood) decided to follow in her father's footsteps and enter the world of UX consulting. Tune in to hear their stories and partake of special insights to help empower and enrich your UX journey.#ux#eq#podcasts#cxofmradio#cxofm#realuxtalk#worldofux#uxpotpourriCheck out the new World of UX website at https://www.worldoux.com.Visit the UX Uncensored blog at https://uxuncensored.medium.com.

In episode 32 of The Product Design Podcast, Seth Coelen interviews Morgan Denner, Chief Experience Officer at Tech Fleet and Lead UX Designer at hopscotch. He has a background in sales, IT, and product development which ultimately led him to UX.While transitioning into UX, Morgan identified a gap between his education and practical, real-world experience. This gap inspired him to create Tech Fleet, a community-driven re-skilling platform for UX, Product Management, Development, and many other tech roles. He shares what he has learned along his career transition into UX and tips for finding your edge in the industry to lead to success in the application process. During our interview with Morgan, you will learn:

Jodine Stodart shares how to get and keep stakeholders engaged, why it's important to develop your understanding of self, and the timeless power of listening. Highlights include: ⭐ How important are stakeholder interviews for UX success? ⭐ Can UX be successful if customer centricity isn't a strategic focus? ⭐ How do you help stakeholders to make sense of design artefacts? ⭐ Why do leaders need to be more conscious of their impact on others? ⭐ How do you help someone to see another person's perspective? ====== Who is Jodine Stodart? Jodine is the Director of Fireside Consulting, the UX & Design Coaching, Service Design, Regenerative Design, and Conscious Leadership Coaching practice that she founded in 2019. As someone who is inspired by the potential for design to help solve complex problems, Jodine is also the co-founder of the online UX community called UXCONNECT, through which she runs regular leadership retreats. Prior to Fireside Consulting, Jodine was a Director of User Experience at Digital Arts Network in New Zealand, where she worked with key clients such as Auckland Council, Countdown Supermarkets, and Spark. She was also a Senior User Experience Consultant at Optimal Usability, a leading New Zealand design research consultancy that was sold to Price Waterhouse Coopers in 2014.  ====== Find Jodine here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodinestodart/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jUXposition Website: https://firesideconsulting.biz/ ====== Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TheSpaceInBetween/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/  ====== Hosted by Brendan Jarvis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/ Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Thank you so much for listening to the Choice Hacking podcast. Today's episode was brought to you by Campsite.bio. Click here to learn more and support the podcast. ✅Join my free newsletter✅Buy my book (or audiobook), "Choice Hacking: How to use psychology and behavioral science to create an experience that sings"✅Take my course, "Behavioral Science + Psychology 101 for Marketers"✅Learn how you can work with Jennifer Clinehens and Choice HackingINSTAGRAM/TWITTER/LINKEDIN: @choicehacking//SOURCES: Choice Hacking, 5 Ways Uber Used Psychology to Perfect Its Experience 

REVISITING EPISODE 018:   Steve Krug is one of the founding fathers of User Experience and Usability Design, and a bestselling author of two foundational classics in the field: Don't Make Me Think, his guide to Usability Design with over 600,000 copies in print today, and Rocket Surgery Made Easy, a friendly guide to Usability Testing. He based his writing on decades spent as a usability consultant for a wide variety of clients like Apple, Bloomberg.com, Lexus.com, NPR, and the International Monetary Fund, and continues to consult through his firm, Advanced Common Sense.    EPISODE SUMMARY   In this conversation we discuss: [2:45] Life during the Covid pandemic. [5:49] Being nice is better than being smart. [9:04] Being nice in politics. [12:58] Not replacing Mr. Wizard. [17:22] From writing to usability. [22:29] The story behind "Don't Make Me Think". [27:47] Steve's literary style. [31:55] The evolution of UX design. [37:33] Empathy as a pre-requisite for being a great UX expert. [46:28] Writing and hating it since 1980 - about the new book about writing. [52:44] Advice for writers. [55:42] A short sermon on UX.    EPISODE LINKS Steve's Links

Welcome to the Summer Series of Culture Factor. I'm Holly Shannon.When I was speaking and interviewing at NFT NYC I noticed themes that almost every one of my conversations touched.This new Web3 digital space is made up of artists, collectors and businesses and when we stopped to scratch the surface, these underlying themes all pointed toward our most basic, fundamental, evolutionary need: connection.Over the next few weeks, I'm going to break down the whys, not just the whats, of this new digital space we find ourselves in.Hello Culture Factor Family, and welcome to the summer series.During my interviews at NFT NYC, a theme that revealed itself underneath the Web3 technology was the different kinds of user experience.Technology accessibility, fiat (or, real cash money)vs. cryptocurrency, social media, personal expression, community, and education these are all facets of user experience that I've noticed directly affect people's engagement in this space — both literally and metaphorically.I'll start with some examples. Let's talk about accessibility.Holly Shannon's WebsiteZero To Podcast on AmazonMint Holly Shannon + Culture Factor NFTHolly Shannon, LinkedinHolly Shannon, InstagramHolly Shannon, TwitterWatch Culture Factor and VaynerNFTBlockparty Part OneWill Pemble's episode#web  #business  #backstage  #education  #talk  #collector #NFTNYC #billboards  #indie #timessquare #technologies #conversations #creativity #creators #nfts #nft #nftart #cryptocurrency #blockchain #metaverse #culturefactor #web3 #smartcontracts #bitcoin #nftartist #nftcollectors #eth #ethereum #marketingdigital #marketingstrategy #marketingtips #youtubers #tiktok #instagram #reels #branding #authorsofig #podcastersofinstagram #authorpreneur #entrepreneur #solopreneur #coach #consulting #zerotopodcast #podcast #jobsearching #thoughtleader #thoughtleadership #b2bmarketing #b2b #b2bsales #writersofig #howtopodcast #startapodcasttoday #startapodcastalready #nofear #lifelonglearning  #experiences #experientialmarketing #bitcoin #companyculture #employeeengagment #web3 #smartcontracts #bitcoin #nftartist #nftcollectors #eth #ethereum #community #peertopeer #decentralizedeconomy 

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor NumbersIf you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends October 1st 2022. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: www.complete-works.co.ukhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/bala-mcalinn-05406683/ Bala McAlinn began working in the Visitor Attraction industry in 2007 writing and directing shows for organisations including London Zoo and the Science Museum. In 2012 he founded Boo Consultancy Ltd, a sister company to the event agency Boo Productions Ltd. Boo Consultancy is a training and staffing agency that applies theatrical techniques to the environments of Visitor Attractions. They predominantly place actors in FOH positions to increase membership sales and visitor donations or deliver workshops to improve the sales and storytelling skills of inhouse teams. In 2021 they rebranded to Complete Works a nod to the greatest storyteller and their theatrical past and because our approach is holistic, redefining the 3 key elements of success: your visitors, your destination and your team.They work with many leading organisations including the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Wembley Stadium, The Macallan Distillery and the National Gallery where they won a 2019 Institute of Promotional Marketing award for increasing visitor donations by more than 300% whilst also improving visitor satisfaction scores.His parents are from Los Angeles, his wife is from Sydney and he was born in London. Thus, he has had various accents over the years and matched with the fact that he has an Indian forename and Irish surname, He has grown accustomed to people being generally intrigued, mildly amused and partially confused by him. Which is great for networking and tricky when changing energy supplier over the phone. Thankfully he does more networking than the latter. Bala has 3 hilarious children whom he enjoys making music, drawing cartoons and boxing with. Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host Kelly Molson. Each episode I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. These chats are fun, informative, and hopefully always interesting.In today's episode, I speak with Bala McAlinn, founder of Complete Works. I ask Bala how you teach someone to be a good storyteller, and he shares his tips for improving visitor experience through performance.If you like what you hear, subscribe on all the user channels by searching, Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. It's lovely to have you on.Bala McAlinn: Very welcome, Kelly. Nice to be here.Kelly Molson: I am going to ask you a few icebreaker questions, because this is how we start every interview. We've met before though, I don't feel like we need to break the ice, but everyone loves these, so let's go ahead.Kelly Molson: We're going to talk about storytelling and we're going to talk about visitor experience. I want to know what your favourite story is?Bala McAlinn: I'm going to go with, I think my favourite story of all time is The Diamond as Big as the Ritz by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which is a short story that he wrote about, it's slightly science fiction, but within the real world.Bala McAlinn: And there's a family who for generations live on a mountain and the mountain is a diamond, but they have to control the flow of diamonds into society otherwise the price of diamonds would plummet and they wouldn't be as rich.Bala McAlinn: So they're like a secret Bond villain family who live on this diamond mountain and have servants who speak their own language.Bala McAlinn: And one of the children goes off to college and meets the protagonist of the story and invites him to come to the mountain. I won't give away what happens next, but it's bonkers and fascinating and exciting, innovative.Kelly Molson: Great. Sure. I've never read that either. So I'm going to add that to my list. All right. In terms of customer service, what has been your best ever customer service experience?Bala McAlinn: So I think in recent times, the one that instantly pops into my mind, is a client. So I will share that but I'll also potentially try to think of another one as well. So it doesn't just seem like I'm doing that.Bala McAlinn: So some of the greatest customer experience I've received in recent times is at the Macallan Distillery up in Speyside, which is just second to none, it.Bala McAlinn: When you talk about a five star customer experience, that phrase is used a lot, and people talk about world class customer, visitor, guest, whichever word you want to use, experiences and they are truly nailing it across the board in so many different ways.Bala McAlinn: So their team are fantastic, they've done a great job of investing in them, making them feel important, supporting them and you can just tell because it's so authentically good.Bala McAlinn: All the people you interact with truly want to be there, are truly passionate about Macallan and its history and there's so many good stories.Bala McAlinn: I think one of the last times I was up there, I was given a tour by one of the tour guides and they're in a unique position that not every organisation could do this, but when she was given us the tour, we're in a section that had, it wasn't a museum, but had a case that's like a museum case.Bala McAlinn: And there was an old hip flask in there. It was lady called Lindsay and she's, I would imagine, 25. So quite young in the world of whiskey. And then that was her grandfather's hip flask.Bala McAlinn: And she started telling us about how she's third generation on the estate and all this, and you're just pulled in and it was just such a powerful emotive story and such a connection with her.Bala McAlinn: And she's not unique. When you spend time there and meet other people, there's so many people who have a family connection to the place.Bala McAlinn: But it isn't just that. There's so many people who have immigrated from other parts of the world to come and work there and are equally as passionate. The whiskey is delicious and their food is sublime.Kelly Molson: Wow.Bala McAlinn: They do a incredible tasting meal that the chef Pavel creates and it certainly doesn't stay the same, it's all local ingredients.Bala McAlinn: A lot of it's come from the Spey on their estate and you'll have fascinating adaptations of trout and salmon and local beef and things all paired with wines and whiskeys and it's truly magnificent.Kelly Molson: You've sold it. If that isn't the power of storytelling I don't know what is. There's the example that we've all been listening for today.Kelly Molson: All right. Final icebreaker. I want to know, what is your guilty food pleasure?Bala McAlinn: Turkish Delight. There you go.Kelly Molson: Oh, okay.Bala McAlinn: Yeah, no, I love Turkish Delight. My palette, I've got quite a Victorian palette or something, because I don't like a lot of modern sweets, but I love Turkish Delight. I love marzipan.Bala McAlinn: So it's really convenient if there's a box of chocolates, because everybody goes in for certain truffles or different ones and the Turkish Delight or the marzipan one is often left till last.Bala McAlinn: But I'll definitely go for those or in a box of Celebrations, which I don't particularly like, but if I'm going to have one of those, I want the Bounty. I don't want the others.Kelly Molson: Why has Bounty got such a bad name? It is such a superior chocolate when it comes to Celebrations. I don't understand this. It's delicious.Bala McAlinn: Coconut's delicious. So I like those ones. But yeah, my real guilty pleasure is burgers. I had a burger last night. I eat too many burgers. It's just the perfect meal.Kelly Molson: So compact, all in one.Bala McAlinn: Picking up just a big meat sandwich with lots of cheese, lots of pickles, lots of things in it. Yeah, I'm happy with one of those.Kelly Molson: Okay. All right. And we're at unpopular opinion time. So what have you got for us?Bala McAlinn: I suppose my unpopular opinion, I don't really like technology. And a lot of people say that, but I think I genuinely don't.Bala McAlinn: And obviously I'm aware of how much technology has helped the world in so many ways and why we live longer and we can communicate with people who we wouldn't be able to have connections with if we didn't have technology.Bala McAlinn: But yeah, I find it annoying. So I don't like computers, I don't like phones. I keep a paper diary and a paper notebook, which everybody who works with me finds incredibly frustrating.Bala McAlinn: Because I can't share. I can tell them what I'm doing next Tuesday if they ask. But I can't let the counselors see it on a calendar invite.Bala McAlinn: I struggled getting on this Zoom call today. When you asked me to be on this, I said, "Yeah, but can we do it in person?"Kelly Molson: I said, "No, that's a real pain in the arse."Bala McAlinn: There's a huge insult and an indicator that you didn't really want to chat to me. And I was like, "Yeah, there's a lovely sunny day where we could be strolling through some woodland having a chat or doing something," and you could have invited your listeners to come as well, we could have had a picnic.Kelly Molson: So this will come. I just needed more time to organise it. Oh, it will happen. All right. Okay. Look, we all need technology in our lives but I know that this is quite stressful for you.Kelly Molson: But thank you. I appreciate that you've you've given this a go today for me. Do you think, now I want to talk about your background a little bit, because we've talked about this before and it is super fascinating how you've gone from being a classically trained actor to working with visitor attractions.Kelly Molson: So tell us about your background. So tell us how you've gone from being a classically trained actor to running Complete Works?Bala McAlinn: So yes, so I was an actor, not particularly successfully, but successful enough to do it for five years and pay the bills. Not Hollywood or Royal Shakespeare Company, which is where I wanted to be.Bala McAlinn: Lots of pantomime and theatre and education. And I did a couple of little bits on TV, which was fun, but nothing significant. So I enjoyed the lifestyle of being an actor and the fun and experience of it.Bala McAlinn: And then the reality is I met my now wife and she became more important to me than the lifestyle of basically not having to work that much, doing some shows, and getting to lie in the morning, which was great fun in my 20s.Bala McAlinn: But yes, so decided I needed something with a bit more stability, a bit more of a stable future progression. So yeah, started looking and thinking about what else I might do.Bala McAlinn: So I decided to become a cartoonist because that's really stable as well and the obvious progression from being an actor. So that was fun. That didn't work out.Bala McAlinn: But actually it did give me some really good experience because I started a greeting cards company.Kelly Molson: Oh, wow.Bala McAlinn: It was called Of Mice and Mice. And it was this mouse in human situations but what it did is it talked to me about sales and starting a business.Bala McAlinn: Designed the cards and had them made and website and branding and everything, and then sold them on Portobello Market in West London. So had a stall and sold them there, and they sold.Bala McAlinn: So I was like, "Great, that works." And then had to get them in shops. So I had to go through the process, which was really good for confidence building in terms of being a business person and sales, just having to book appointments, try and convince them to see you then come in and pitch your portfolio and get them to stock and supply you.Bala McAlinn: And so I did that for a year or so. I got 10 London stockists, which for ages I'd really wanted. It was like 10 London stockists, that's like a landmark.Bala McAlinn: So I got there and did it and then realised my cards, because they were printed on recyclable material with vegetable ink and recyclable and everything, costs like 50p to make and I could sell them for a pound to a shop. I have 10 shops selling me and I make about £30.Kelly Molson: Wow. Back to the drawing board.Bala McAlinn: Didn't give me the lifestyle I crave. But it was a good experience. So then I went back to thinking really about my skill set and what I'd done as an actor and the training I'd had to be an actor.Bala McAlinn: So I worked freelance for a number of years for a number of companies. So doing shows again and writing shows, but then working with visitor attractions.Bala McAlinn: So I did projects with the Science Museum and London Zoo, writing shows for them or tweaking the scripts of The Bubble Show and Rocket to Bullet show at science museum and Animal Talks at London Zoo and it was fun and I enjoyed that.Bala McAlinn: And so started doing more of that and then started a business doing that. My business, which I started in 2012, the original company, which we still do is training.Bala McAlinn: What we thought that the majority of our training work would be. The animal team, upskilling them to deliver a better gorilla talk or the workshop team, that's in the education team that museums have.Bala McAlinn: So we did that and we still do some of that, but quite quickly we saw that people were just asking us, "Oh actually, can you apply those skills to the front of house team? Because you're making the animal team better communicators. We want our front of house teams to be better communicators. And ultimately we want them to be better communicators to increase commerciality."Bala McAlinn: And that's where our business really took off for obvious reasons. If we're working to help people make more money, we get more work.Bala McAlinn: So focusing on using the skills of performance communication, improvisation, stagecraft in the environments of visitor attractions to upsell membership or increase onsite visitor donations or special exhibitions, is a huge benefit to the organisation and we are skilled and suited to do that.Bala McAlinn: So we started doing that and then the real unplanned success story of our business is then our staffing agency. So we started the business of training and consultancy, but then whilst I was working at Kew Gardens, this must be I think about 2013.Bala McAlinn: And I was doing communications training for their membership team and I'd mystery shopped them a few times to see the experience through the eyes of their guests.Bala McAlinn: And they had some membership promoters at the front, like sitting on stools behind a desk, and it said talk to me about membership. And I was looking at it and they're like, okay. And if people walked up to them, they would tell them about the membership, but there was no proactivity in it at all.Bala McAlinn: And so I'd put in the report. I was like, "It looks like you've got a real opportunity to increase the membership sales there." Because I was mystery shopping, I presumed, they were Kew staff.Bala McAlinn: They then told me that actually they were from a promotional agency that they book to promote the membership. And I said, "Well, they don't promote it. There's no proactive sales. It's just reactive. They sell the membership and it's testament to the strength of Kew Gardens offer that without any proactive sales..."Bala McAlinn: The results were good that. They were getting a decent return on investment from this company, but there was nothing proactive.Bala McAlinn: So I was like, "Well, actually I know load of actors. Let us have a go and let's see what we can do." So we trialed a summer of doing it and increased the sales exponentially and Kew were really happy.Bala McAlinn: And we were really happy and said, "Well, great, let us now do that for you." And, yeah, so our staffing agency is actors between roles predominantly working at visitor attractions and predominantly doing commercial tasks like membership sales or visitor donations.Bala McAlinn: And it's such a great model. Obviously it was my idea, but I didn't really take credit for it. It was like one of these lovely, accidental things where we saw it, we tried it, but the model worked so well.Bala McAlinn: And we love in the company, myself and my employers, supporting actors because a bunch of us are ex actors in my company so we like having that connection and supporting them.Bala McAlinn: And then the actors, we also like that we support actors and we do it by supporting the arts, which is a lovely little circle of artists supporting the arts in their job to pay the bills.Bala McAlinn: And because we're ex actors, we've managed to create an agency that works really well for our actors. We are only as good as our people on the staff and business.Bala McAlinn: And there are lots of promotional agencies and staffing agencies out there but we are quite niche and we are very good for our people, which makes them very good for us.Bala McAlinn: Because know the trials and tribulations of being an actor, whether it's London, Edinburgh, wherever, it's a tough job and you need to pay your rent and you need flexibility.Bala McAlinn: So we give our staff 100% flexibility so they aren't committed to a job if they get an audition or acting. Whereas if they're working in a bar or working somewhere else, regularly they say, "Oh, I've got an audition tomorrow." And regularly they're told, "Well, if you don't come tomorrow, you're going to lose your job."Bala McAlinn: So then they either turn up to work because they need that job, but then they're in a bad mood so they're not going to deliver great experiences or service for whatever they're doing or they just don't come or mysteriously, their grandmother gets sick or something.Bala McAlinn: So we know this can happen. Just give us as much notice as you can, but if you're not working just tell us, which means we have to restaff all the time, but it means that our staff are happy to be there.Bala McAlinn: And then appreciative that we give them that flexibility and we pay them well. It's a premium product and rightly so. We don't do any commission, which lots of our clients always ask, lots of other agencies do.Bala McAlinn: When I was an actor I did loads of sales jobs, telesales and charity fundraising and all sorts. And it was often commission based. And it's again, it's your highs and lows.Bala McAlinn: So if it's a sunny day and you are doing charity fundraising or membership at a visitor attraction, which is I didn't do myself then yeah, you're going to sell loads and it's fantastic. But if it's a rainy day, you are not.Bala McAlinn: And my experience of seeing people do it in other agencies and businesses when I did it was then on the rainy days nobody tries because everybody knows, "Oh, we're just going to get our per deal or something. We're not going to hit commission."Bala McAlinn: So everybody just sits back because there's no point. Whereas for us, we charge fair, we pay fair and our team appreciate that and the attraction can budget accordingly. It's not in terms of our billing, as can the staff.Bala McAlinn: And they know I will be able to pay my rent if I do those shifts or it might be that one might and that one not, and that emotional journey, we want them to be happy that they're there with the flexibility.Bala McAlinn: We want them to be happy that they're being paid well and then we pay them quickly as well, which lot of agencies don't because they're freelancers and they're used to being paid six weeks, two months after putting in an invoice.Bala McAlinn: So we pay our freelancers every other Friday. Used to be every Friday pre pandemic. We dropped it to every other Friday since the pandemic, but that's still much better than a lot of companies.Bala McAlinn: It means we are often in effect running a bank for our staff because our clients don't pay separate, we're not chasing invoices two months, three months, six months down the line.Bala McAlinn: But we get the results that we do with our staff because they are happy, well paid, have flexibility and know they're going to get paid next Friday.Kelly Molson: This is wonderful. Who have created an organisation or create a business that can deliver so brilliantly for both of the sectors, for both the actors that work for you and the attractions that you work for, that's a huge achievement. Something to be immensely proud about.Kelly Molson: I loved some of the things that you talked about there because I've had this conversation before. I think it was actually with Carly Straughan and a mutual friend of ours about visitor experience and attractions.Kelly Molson: And about how it does attract a lot of people from the theatrical world because you are on show, aren't you? When somebody comes to your attraction, you want that experience to be the best it possibly can be for them.Kelly Molson: And so essentially you are performing for them to make that happen. So it's amazing that you can bring people in that have that background to be able to do it.Kelly Molson: What I find fascinating is that you would never know either. So if I came along to the attraction, if I spoke to the membership people or I spoke to the donations people, whoever it is, I wouldn't know that those people didn't work there. You integrate them so seamlessly in that organisation that you would just think that they were there every single day.Bala McAlinn: Absolutely. And that's what we always tell our clients as well with the staffing offer that we do, we want them in the same uniforms as the rest of the team.Bala McAlinn: We don't want them to look like a promotional team or this is the special team that does something different because for the visitor experience, and this is something you see regularly where obviously in a large organisation there's lots of departments, lots of roles and responsibilities, but to the visitor, anyone wearing a badge or a lanyard or a green fleece or whatever it is, represents the organisation.Bala McAlinn: The visitor will just go to the most convenient person to ask a question or a query. And you do sometimes see in an organisation that isn't delivering great experiences that people work in silos and, "Oh no, that's not my department. You need to speak to someone else."Bala McAlinn: And people hate getting passed around. They just want to deal with the person there and get whatever service it is that they need at that time.Bala McAlinn: So for our guys, we want them in the uniforms so that they integrate also because we are doing sales and we want to do it in a somewhat sneaky way.Bala McAlinn: Because, and it's not malicious by any means, but it's that experience of if you're walking down a high street and you clock someone up ahead with a clipboard or an iPad smiling at you and trying to make eye contact.Kelly Molson: Run.Bala McAlinn: Can I cross it? I'm going to brave this fast moving traffic to get to the other side of the street to avoid this person who's going to either ask me questions on a survey or try and sell me something or get me to sign up something.Bala McAlinn: And that's a natural reaction that we have. So for our teams, we want them integrated and then we always lead with service. We never come straight in with sales because it's off putting. It can be jarring.Bala McAlinn: Wherever you are in the attraction, whether it's entrance, exit or mid experience, if you're suddenly interrupted with sales, it can take you aback. So our team are always trained and we have different processes at different sites, different organisations.Kelly Molson: Can we share an example of this? Because this was one of my questions about what we're talking about, because there's two very distinct trains here of what you do, but they intertwine, don't they?Kelly Molson: So it's very much about storytelling for sales, but also visitor experience as well. And this is the bit where they cross over.Kelly Molson: You've got some absolutely incredible case studies on your website about the results that you delivered. I've got here increased donations at the National Gallery by between 300 and 400%. That's phenomenal.Bala McAlinn: Yeah.Kelly Molson: How do you do that? How do you lead with the experience? What do you teach people to do?Bala McAlinn: Yeah, so that one specifically was all about improving the welcome experience at the National Gallery, which led to those results. So that was a great project.Bala McAlinn: Yeah. So that started 2016, 2017, something like that. So originally we won a tender to do a research trial and the National Gallery was great.Bala McAlinn: Because often we'll do a project like this and we just get given a week or a day even and it's hard to really work everything out in such a period of time.Bala McAlinn: But here we had four months and the tender was put out to see if you could increase onsite visitor donations with a team who self-funded themselves through increased donations, made additional income on top and did not affect the visitor experience.Bala McAlinn: The National Gallery, the director Gabriele, was absolutely resolute that he didn't want suddenly the experience to be altered. And everybody felt that they're being shaken down for cash as they came through one of the entrances.Bala McAlinn: And then in that tender, we won the tender, and then we were given six questions to answer over a four month period. It'll be, who will donate? Where will they donate? What other commerciality can you connect with donations? Times? Et cetera, et cetera.Bala McAlinn: But yeah, so we had four months. So we had four people, seven days a week for four months, with a tablet literally velcro'd to their patent and we'd change the patent every two weeks.Bala McAlinn: So we'd do something for two weeks, look at the data, record it and then tweak it and change it. So we'd try different scripts, different ask, different locations. And after every interaction they'd record on the tablet.Bala McAlinn: We split the visitors into I think, six different broad demographics. So they'd click the type of visitor, whether they donated, if they did donate the amount, and where they were and what time.Bala McAlinn: And we had something like, I can't remember exactly, 140,000 interactions over the period of time. So it was a huge amount of data. So we had the time and opportunity to get it incredibly slick.Bala McAlinn: And we found that there were really surprising, subtle changes and differences that would have dramatic effect on income. The positioning of boxes, the relationship of the positioning of boxes to where security is, or ticket desks or experiences again has dramatic effect. Security in particular. So it was fascinating.Bala McAlinn: So obviously National Gallery's on Trafalgar Square so you absolutely need security, absolutely need that. But the security does affect the visitor experience.Bala McAlinn: Because you're coming into an exquisite, arguably the world's greatest collection of art, and you're going through airport style, beepy things, having bags searched, which it's necessary, but it's not a pleasant visitor experience to have that.Bala McAlinn: So if that is happening and then immediately after that you have a welcome led donation ask, you'll get some, but you won't get as many as if you don't have that.Bala McAlinn: You can still have that, but simply by distancing it from that and distancing it can literally be a few meters and a door. So we moved security from inside the entrance to outside the entrance.Bala McAlinn: And the security guards, they're a bit like, "You can wear a coat, it's all right." We weren't always popular with the things that we did.Bala McAlinn: But yeah, by putting the security outside of the building, at both Portico and Sainsbury entrances that they're covered. So you could put the security there, people are searched, they then walk through the doors and it's like-Kelly Molson: That's the start, yes.Bala McAlinn: So they then disassociate. They then walk in and then they see a friendly, welcoming person who welcomes them to the National Gallery.Bala McAlinn: And, oh, they've now forgotten about the bag searching, forgotten that they had to shove their keys back in a bag or whatever it is.Bala McAlinn: They're now in the building, there's an instant release of tension from that and then they meet a friendly, welcoming person and their propensity to donate instantly increases.Bala McAlinn: And the training for the team there was relatively straightforward. We had 17 frequently asked questions that in such a high percentage can create a great, welcome experience.Bala McAlinn: Most people it's the Sunflowers, Whistlejacket, where's the cafe? Where's the toilet? What time do you close? That level of information can create a brilliant welcoming experience for most people.Bala McAlinn: Of course, there's occasionally somebody looking for a very particular more obscure work of art and that's different. And the team will then have to go to the very efficient in-house team who has a broader knowledge of the collection,.Bala McAlinn: But simply by welcoming people, answering a frequently asked question or two, and then informing people that the National Gallery is a charity and if you can donate, please do, donations skyrocketed.Bala McAlinn: And we kept it consistently between three to 400% for three years. So after the four month tender, we then won a two year contract to do it.Bala McAlinn: Well, there was an extension up to a year then we won a two year contract after that to do it. We kept it for three years at that level.Kelly Molson: That is phenomenal, that's phenomenal, isn't it? Because now it's not just about the visitor experience, not just about sales training, it's about location, it's about understanding how your guests enter your attraction. There's so much involved in it. That's fascinatingBala McAlinn: It's core to what we do and our background. And we predominantly look at three things, which are from the world of theatre, and that's storytelling, stagecraft, and improvisation.Bala McAlinn: Storytelling being your communications, the words you're delivering, but not just verbally with your mouth, but with your body and your tone and voice.Bala McAlinn: And we want whatever you are communicating for it to be articulate and for it to not just be heard, but to be understood.Bala McAlinn: So we look at the nuances of that, and little changes of script can have big differences in a donation ask or in a membership pitch.Bala McAlinn: And then, yeah, we look at stagecraft and if you are producing a play, of course, you have a tech rehearsal or several tech rehearsals.Bala McAlinn: And you block the play so that everybody knows exactly where they're going to be standing so that the technical team and the lighting designer plans it so that they make sure that if it's a touchy moment in the play or dramatic point that the lights are just right, and the audience can not only hear the words, but they can see what they're supposed to see.Bala McAlinn: And we look at that in the environments of visitor attractions, looking at where donation boxes are placed, membership asked, are they front and centre? Should they be?Bala McAlinn: And we'll often see them tucked away in dusty corners and people say, "Oh, nobody really ever donates." It's like, "Well, yeah, because so many people don't notice it or there's nobody interacting with it."Bala McAlinn: So we look at the stagecraft and then we look at improvisation because no two days are the same in a visitor attraction. And the ability to be able to think and adapt quickly on your feet is an incredibly useful skill.Bala McAlinn: And then match with that improvisation, that there's a principle, the yes and principle. When you are doing a scene, you don't block the scene, you don't simply say no, because if you do, it ends the scene.Bala McAlinn: So if I was doing the scene with you and you walked in and said, "Oh, hi, I've got a delivery. Are you John?" If I just say, "No." The scene ends.Bala McAlinn: Where I need to say, "Yes, I'm John. I've been waiting for my delivery. Please give it." So yes and drives the action forward. And we want that mindset within a visitor attraction as well.Bala McAlinn: We can't always say yes to every request, but we can offer an alternative. We can improvise. So somebody wants this X, if we know they can't have it, if we just say, "Oh, I want this." "No, you can't have it." Bad visitor experience.Bala McAlinn: But if I go, "Oh, wow, it's great you want that. However, I've got Y and I think you're really going to like this." Then we've driven the action forward, so yeah.Kelly Molson: I love this. Just going back to what you were talking about with Macallan right at the beginning where you talked about Lindsay and her story.Kelly Molson: Obviously she has a personal connection to the site, that was her grandfather's hip flask. She could talk about it very emotively. But how easy is it to train someone to be a good storyteller?Bala McAlinn: Everybody within reason and physical and cognitive abilities can improve their storytelling, certainly. And in the vast majority of cases, virtually everybody I meet and work with is a good storyteller.Bala McAlinn: They are just often not confident at storytelling so can't necessarily do it in a public environment. But you guarantee that when they are at home with their buddy or their family member, they've been telling stories for years.Bala McAlinn: In the vast majority of cases, there are of course exceptions to every rule, but often it's a fear of presenting or public speaking or interacting with people.Bala McAlinn: There was a study in the Washington Post, it was a year or two ago, of the most common fears in the United States and the third most common fear was snakes. The second most common fear was heights. And the number one most common fear in the United States of America was public speaking.Bala McAlinn: And there will be a correlation with the UK as well there. So I often tell people who aren't confident public speakers that that's pretty much the most normal thing to be, the most number one common fear.Bala McAlinn: So that's often in terms of delivering a briefing to a team of staff, or delivering a pitch to a board or conference speaking or something like that. Often lots of people have reticence to do that.Bala McAlinn: But storytelling in the environments of a visitor attraction is the same, this is public speaking and having the confidence to approach a family next to a work of art who are looking slightly confused and tell them the history of that takes confidence.Bala McAlinn: So to become a good storyteller, there's lots of tips and tricks. As when you go to drama school and when you become an actor in the rehearsal room, you learn lots of nuances of body, breath and voice, and that's great. Absolutely.Bala McAlinn: And that takes you to a higher level of technical ability in storytelling, but by far and above the most important thing is gaining experience more than the technique and it's gaining experience so that you become confident.Bala McAlinn: And what I say is experience leads to confidence and confidence leads to good practice. It's not about being a confident person, the most confident person in the world if you give them a task that they're inexperienced at, they may confidently give it a go, but they'll fail at it.Bala McAlinn: So whatever it is, whether it's public speaking, whether it's small interactions with a visitor, whatever it is, whatever task it is, you need to build experience.Bala McAlinn: And that takes time. So you just have to apply yourself to the task and repeat it and repeat it until there's a point that, "Oh, I've built confidence because of the experience I have."Bala McAlinn: Once I'm confident at the task, then that's when you start adding a bit of vocal technique or body language, more interaction, more humour, because you're now at a confident place where you can play around with it and get to that point of good practice.Bala McAlinn: Then that's fun, that's fun. It takes a while to get there but being at a place of good practice is joyful. And it's not just storytelling and public speaking.Bala McAlinn: We all do it in our jobs. A new job takes a while. A new job on a till, you don't know how it works, all the buttons, and you might be learnt quite quickly, but you're inexperienced for a while.Bala McAlinn: Until click, "Oh, I'm confident at it." Now I can run the products through the till whilst having a conversation with the visitor. For a while, I'm having to look at the till and do this and I can't.Bala McAlinn: Once I'm on the till at the place of good practice, I'm now asking that person how their day is and what did they say, noticing the kid. "Did you see the giraffe? That's great. He's called Henry." So I'm now adding to the experience, but because I'm at a place of good practice.Bala McAlinn: With storytelling, that place of good practice allows you to adapt and change for your audience. If you're having to think about your content and your technique, you are not fully in the moment and connected to your words.Bala McAlinn: If you've got to a place with good practice where I can deliver this animal talk, I can deliver this membership pitch, I can deliver whatever it is because I've done it so many times that I now don't need to really think about it like a person on the till.Bala McAlinn: I can be live, present in the moment, and listen and react. So because I'm not having to think about it, I notice that I start losing the attention of somebody who I'm presenting to.Bala McAlinn: And if I notice that I can probably get their attention back by changing the pitch of my voice or the volume or becoming very serious if I'm being jovial or becoming very jovial if I'm being serious.Bala McAlinn: A juxtaposition or a change brings the attention back. Or if I'm engaged in sales and I'm really confident what I'm delivering, I'll start noticing the bits of the pitch where there's a little flicker in the eye and I go, "Okay, they're interested in that benefit."Bala McAlinn: So I'll talk more about that benefit. Because if I'm not live in the moment, I'm just listing benefits and not really noticing what's good for them or not good for them.Bala McAlinn: So yeah, so to improve storytelling techniques, first and foremost it's just building experience. And you do it in safe environments, you do it with your friends, do it with your family, do it at work.Bala McAlinn: But you have to step out of your comfort zone a bit. You have to push yourself forward to learn and we can all become better storytellers.Bala McAlinn: I do it for a job and have done for a long time, but I certainly am not the best in the world and I'm certainly not the best that I can be.Bala McAlinn: And I certainly hope that, may have been doing it for 20 years, but I certainly hope in 20 more years I will be as much better then from where I am now 20 years.Bala McAlinn: It's a constant journey. It's a constant development. And to develop you need to just push yourself a bit further to the point where I am now a bit inexperienced and then do it, do it, do it until, "Oh. Now I'm confident and now I've grown and I'm better."Kelly Molson: And that's where the magic happens.Bala McAlinn: Yeah.Kelly Molson: Brilliant. Thank you. Absolutely excellent tips today that I'm sure our listeners are going to love. Just before we wrap up, I really want to ask you, how would an attraction recognise that they needed to get in touch with you?Kelly Molson: What's the pain points for them? We've talked a lot about donations side and driving membership. What's that trigger where they would need to think about calling you guys in?Bala McAlinn: So our core products are training and staffing. Some organisations we do one of those things, some we do both. So the training is we come in and deliver storytelling workshops, visitor experience workshops, or sales workshops for the in-house teams to build their confidence, build their experience at those tasks.Bala McAlinn: The staffing is where we simply come in and do it with our own people. Often we do both. I love combining the two on a project where if somebody wants to increase commerciality and wants their team to improve on it, for us to be the best we can be in the workshop, we need to experience it first.Bala McAlinn: So before a training workshop, we'll come and do some benchmarking where somebody will get in touch, say, "We want," whoever it is, "This department to sell more memberships."Bala McAlinn: We go, "Great. Can we come for a week and sell your memberships?" Then we'll come. We'll mystery shop it, look at everything, see if we recommend making a few tweaks in the stage craft.Bala McAlinn: Then we'll put some of our actors in uniforms in position for a week or two and sell the memberships because then we can say, "Okay, definitively we know on a Saturday you should be targeting X memberships. On a rainy Tuesday you should be targeting Y and it's achievable because we've just done it."Bala McAlinn: "And whilst we were doing it, we noticed that this little phrase or this benefit in the offer, that was the tipping point for so many people."Bala McAlinn: So then in the training room where we are training their staff then and we'll be using body language vocal techniques and getting their confidence to interact more with visitors.Bala McAlinn: But if we can then put in specific lines, specific little bits of script, that this little group of words had a great effect for anyone with kids. Oh, the retired couples mentioned that and then that's really useful for them.Bala McAlinn: We like scripts. We don't like anybody ever appearing to be delivering a script because that is the worst type, well, wouldn't say the worst side, it's an awful type of visitor experience.Bala McAlinn: And we've all experienced where you talk to someone and you know they're just saying something that they've been told to say and they've said it a thousand times today.Bala McAlinn: I use the analogy often of a good actor and a bad actor. We've all seen both probably. And the bad actor often appears to be not proficient at their work because they're not in the moment.Bala McAlinn: They're not connected to it because they're thinking about the words they're saying next or thinking about the action in the performance that's about to happen.Bala McAlinn: So suddenly the tone of voice goes a little monotone. Their eyes may come up because I'm not actually thinking about these words, I'm thinking that I need to go open that door because there's another character and you see them come out.Bala McAlinn: Whereas the actor who is the good actor can be delivering Shakespeare, 500 year old words that have been said millions of times, but we've hopefully all seen Shakespeare where it genuinely appears like these words have been said for the first time.Bala McAlinn: And it's emotive and beautiful and powerful and we know they're not, but because the actor's living and breathing that character, they're fully in the moment.Bala McAlinn: Whereas we want that in a visitor attraction. There will be a most likely route to commerciality, whether it's an exhibition ticket, a membership sale, a visitor donation, and then that will change for different audience groups.Bala McAlinn: But okay, you see the family, most likely benefits that appeal to them. You see the overseas visitor, most likely script that appeals to them.Bala McAlinn: So we want the team to know those, have learnt them. We don't want to turn a team into robots saying things but we want them to be at that point of good practice, where they're live in the moment, interacting, having fun.Bala McAlinn: But then there's the moment and suddenly they say something scripted. Like, "You must come to the Botanic Gardens in the fall. It's my favourite time of year. And with the membership, you can come back then too."Bala McAlinn: So it's just suddenly like a scripted line. It doesn't seem like it's scripted, but actually they've said it a lot. But because they've said it so many times and they've seen the benefit.Bala McAlinn: That oh yeah, mention autumn or mention snowfall at Christmas, say something emotive that you use storytelling to put the person you're selling to in the story, "You must come back in February, it's orchid season and you can walk through the glass houses and see these flowers in bloom."Bala McAlinn: And suddenly that person, because you've said, "You must come back," and you're using descriptive language, sees themselves walking through orchids in February and suddenly their propensity to buy a membership goes up because it's not February and they want to come back and they can take the price of their ticket off.Bala McAlinn: To absolutely improvise every single time for the visitor in front of you is a difficult task. Orchids, that's probably going to work at Kew Gardens because it's a growth thing.Bala McAlinn: Jousting, that's going to work at Historic Environment Scotland. It was jousting weekend last weekend. So we've been telling people about that. That was at Linlithgow Castle.Bala McAlinn: But we're telling people about it at Stirling Castle and Edinburgh Castle because they're there, buy the membership, you can go see the jousting. "Imagine being there and seeing..."Bala McAlinn: Suddenly you put someone in a store and then they get their propensity to buy whatever the product is.Kelly Molson: Oh you are good, you're good. I want to go jousting. I want to walk through the orchids. I want to be there in fall. That's the story, isn't it? That's the power of the story.Bala McAlinn: Excellent.Kelly Molson: All right. We're coming to the end of the podcast. I always ask our guests to recommend a book that they love to our listeners. It might be something professional, it might be something personal. What have you got for us today?Bala McAlinn: Cool. Okay. I've got a couple with an admission as well, which is a sad, sad truth about myself, I used to be an avid reader and used to read lots of books.Bala McAlinn: And I started my business 10 years ago and had two more children during that time as well. And for the past eight years or so I've become somebody who starts books and then never finishes them.Bala McAlinn: And George, one of the key guys I work with, George Mclean, always says, "If you talk about tiredness, it becomes a competition." "Oh, I'm really tired to that." "Oh yeah, I'm really tired." "Oh yeah, my kid woke me up at five." "Yeah, my kid was up at 2:00 AM."Bala McAlinn: And it's just this and the more you talk about tiredness, the more tired you become. But the reality is running a business, having kids, I've been exhausted for the last decade.Bala McAlinn: Try and read a book and just fall asleep. However, I do occasionally manage one. So there was a great book I read recently and actually did manage to finish called Get in Trouble by Kelly Link.Bala McAlinn: They're short stories. Maybe they're novelettes, their length, they're 100 page stories as opposed to full novels and in a exciting, surreal sci-fi type environment, which I very much enjoyed.Bala McAlinn: And I've bought a new book this week, which I haven't read, so it could be awful.Kelly Molson: It could be good. Who knows?Bala McAlinn: Hopefully. And it's more connected to visitor attraction industry. So there's a guy called Nick Gray who had a company called Museum Hack.Bala McAlinn: I met him at a conference, the Blooloop conference, in Liverpool a number of years ago. Great guy. Museum Hack was awesome. So it still exists, but he sold it.Bala McAlinn: So Museum Hack is an awesome company who does, primarily in America, tours and museums, but focusing on sex, death, value. So focusing on the idea everybody really wants to know how much that's worth.Bala McAlinn: And then things like people only have an attention span of a certain amount of time. And a lot of people I'd imagine will hate the sound of this, but it ticks boxes for me and they get rave reviews.Bala McAlinn: So they'll be delivering the tour in The Met or wherever and then after half an hour, they'll stop and all do a little bit of yoga because it then reconnects you and your attention span can come back.Bala McAlinn: And they are these super fun companies-Kelly Molson: I love that.Bala McAlinn: Great guy. Really interesting. And yes, so I met him there. We linked, I don't really know, but we linked on LinkedIn an occasionally like each other's post and things like that. He's just released a book called The 2-Hour Cocktail Party, which has just come out.Kelly Molson: Ah, I saw this. I saw this. I didn't know it was him. This looks great.Bala McAlinn: So I haven't read it, but I do know quite a lot about it because he's been talking about this for several years and so he hosts cocktail parties.Bala McAlinn: So he was in New York for a long time. He's now been moving around. I think he lives in Austin now. But yeah, so he used cocktail parties as ways to meet people.Bala McAlinn: And sometimes for business purposes, but also just to make new mates in a new town or a city. And so it's a easy to follow manual of how to produce a simple, effective cocktail party.Kelly Molson: Oh, wow.Bala McAlinn: Simple, lovely idea. So I bought it this week, but I'm looking forward to reading at least the first few chapters before then I fall asleep and it gets put-Kelly Molson: All right, well look listeners. As ever, you can win these books. So if you go over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Bala's book," you could be in with a chance winning that.Kelly Molson: I am going to buy this book and then what we can do is have a competition about who's read the least of it because they're the tiredest.Bala McAlinn: And then we can have a cocktail party, which is much more fun.Kelly Molson: In real life, without any technology.Bala McAlinn: Exactly.Kelly Molson: And that's perfect. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Bala. It's been lovely to talk to you. Thank you for all of the tips that you've shared.Kelly Molson: We will put all of Bala's contact details in the show note. So if you need some sales training or if you need some help with your visitor experience, you'll know exactly where to go. Thanks for joining us.Bala McAlinn: Thanks a lot. Take care.Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us.And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

As Darren always says, working in UX is about much more than the actual work itself. In this episode, Darren is joined by UX professional Justin Ranton in a discussion covering several critical topics that all provide insights about many of the unseen and overlooked elements associated with the discipline. Tune in for an energetic and enlightening dialogue.#ux#eq#podcasts#cxofmradio#cxofm#realuxtalk#worldofux#uxpotpourriCheck out the new World of UX website at https://www.worldoux.com.Visit the UX Uncensored blog at https://uxuncensored.medium.com.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Paul Lafata, VP of product management at Heal and former CEO of Mercedes-Benz USA/Lab1886 Daimler's USA, in this episode. He has also worked as the Head of Design & Innovation at Laureti, the Experience Design Director at BCG Digital Ventures, the Design Director at Bird, the Director of User Experience at Qualcomm, and other companies.Aside from being a great CEO, Design Director Paul distinguished himself by being a true intrapreneur, developing venture ideas, pitching them, and securing funding for them, as well as signing on investors and major clients.In EP73 we discuss the differences between designing a digital automotive experience and designing a digital consumer app, as well as the opportunities for innovation, with Paul.We also talk about the true meaning of good design leadership and how we are involved as a designer in building bridges with business stakeholders.In the episode, we jump into:How can designers have the most impact on their work from a business standpoint?In the automotive industry, Where can designers have the most influence?What new business models are emerging in the automotive industry, particularly in terms of digital products and innovation?What are the opportunities and challenges for designers in the healthcare space?How can digital innovation enable people to receive more measurable assistance?What are the main obstacles to communicating the "value of design" to business stakeholders?How should design be integrated into an organization to be most effective?And many more!Thanks a lot for your time and your learning Paul!******The GuestPaul Lafata is the VP of Product Management & Design at Heal. He is a product creator, startup builder, and team leader.He has over 20 years of experience working in design firms, consultancies, tech behemoths, and media conglomerates as a Product Designer, Creative Director, and Venture Studio CEO.Paul creates consumer products with the goal of providing unique and seamless CX (customer experiences) in healthcare, mobility services, IOT devices, and media.He guides multidisciplinary teams through the product development process's stages of innovation, incubation, and commercialization.He has also worked as a product manager and design leader at Heal, Mercedes, BCG Digital Ventures, Bird, Qualcomm, and Nokia, where he built and led teams to create digital products and services.

In this episode, I spoke with Dan Hafner, a mobile app creator and entrepreneur who helps other businesses and entrepreneurs create apps and solve problems. We talked about focusing on meaningful problems, thinking through the user experience, no-code solutions, and who benefits from creating a mobile app. Join us for a great product management conversation. Dan Hafner:Dan started out building apps with zero ability to write a single line of code, yet somehow figured out how to build an entire app development business! He works with high-level coaches, content creators and entrepreneurs to put their idea into a tangible, sleek and scalable app model.Links from the ShowDappermobileapps.comMobile DominationMore by Kyle:Follow Product by Design and Kyle on TwitterKyle's writing on MediumProduct by Design on MediumSign up for Kyle's Product Thinking Newsletter for more updates.Like our podcast, consider Buying Us a Coffee

In episode 31 of The Product Design Podcast, Seth Coelen interviews Jeremy Miller, Senior Staff Experience Architect at GE Aviation! He is also a mentor and a Retro Time Podcast host where they talk about software, from product design to software development, and the soft skills needed to make it in our industry.Jeremy has worked in agency, startup, and large corporate environments throughout his career. During our chat, he let us know what led him to enterprise UX for a large corporation. Jeremy also shares the skills that have helped him climb the ranks and tips for working in a large corporate environment.During our interview with Jeremy you will learn:

This week, Darren spends time evaluating selected social media posts and replies for the express purpose of exposing a dangerous mentality that's running rampant in UX circles — concepts that give life to non-existent problems and concepts and personas that don't exist. It's time to stop circulating stories of UX boogeymen and time to stop crying wolf. Check out and share this special UX Potpourri episode.#ux#eq#podcasts#cxofmradio#cxofm#realuxtalk#worldofux#uxpotpourriCheck out the new World of UX website at https://www.worldoux.com.Visit the UX Uncensored blog at https://uxuncensored.medium.com.

Hello and welcome to yet another episode of SAP Experts Podcast! My name is Akshi Mohla, and I could not be more excited about today's episode. It is not every day that you deep dive into the world of enterprise architecture and emerging technologies, and that too with someone from a pioneer in healthcare like Roche. With its purpose of “doing now what patients need next” and their 125-year history, Roche remains committed to driving innovations that transform the lives of patients, globally. Today, I am joined by Vikram Rawal, an ERP Enterprise Architect at Roche, with a key focus on ERP, Emerging Technologies, User Experience and Architecture in SAFe. He has 15+ years of IT experience in various domains, including architecture, team leadership, project management, innovation management and application development. He holds a master's in information technology, as well as certifications in TOGAF 9.2, SAFe Architect, SAFe Product Manager/Product Owner, Professional Scrum Master 1, SAP NetWeaver ABAP and Java Programmer. You're listening to SAP Experts Podcast. Please be sure to like, share and subscribe!

TODAY'S GUEST   Irene Au is Design Partner at Khosla Ventures, where she works with early-, mid-, and late-stage startup CEOs. She is dedicated to raising the strategic value of design and user research within software companies through better methods, practices, processes, leadership, talent, and quality. Irene has unprecedented experience elevating the strategic importance of design within technology companies, having built and led the entire User Experience and Design teams at Google, Yahoo!, and Udacity. She began her career as an interaction designer at Netscape Communications, where she worked on the design of the internet's first commercial web browser.   Irene also teaches yoga at Avalon Yoga Center in Palo Alto where she is among the teacher training program faculty and is a frequent author and speaker on mindfulness practices, design, and creativity. An adjunct lecturer at Stanford University, she teaches product design in the mechanical engineering department. Irene also serves as a trustee for the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Museum of Design.   Irene authored the definitive O'Reilly book, Design in Venture Capital, and her popular essays can be found on Medium. She has been featured in WIRED magazine, Fast Company magazine, CommArts magazine, and on the cover of Mindful magazine.   EPISODE SUMMARY   In this conversation we talk about: Developing listening skills as an introspective child, and how feeling like an outsider helped her develop those skills. Her electrical engineering studies, and her transition into looking at how technology influences society and people and how we live.  Her time at Netscape, and tying together the products for a consistent look and feel across a suite of products that came out at the time called Netscape Communicator.  Her move from Netscape to Yahoo!, and what went wrong for Yahoo! as a company trying to find its way. Her time at Google as we look at it from all angles. What was the state of design at Google before she joined and what were the changes she tried to implement as she brought human-centered design and practices to Google? Hiring strategies, staff training, and how design workshops ultimately became the Design Sprint at Google. What is design and what is a designer? And the role of the designer in venture capital.   I think my greatest takeaway from this interview is this sense of hope that someone like Irene is able to walk into these very "techy" cultures and produce real change. And all it takes is really showing the value of the work and being willing to engage and promote better practices. I think Irene will be an inspiration to many non-engineers who find themselves in heavy engineering cultures and want to make a contribution.    This conversation with Irene is one of many weekly conversations we already have lined up for you with thinkers, best-selling authors, designers, makers, scientists, impact entrepreneurs, and others who are working to change our world for the better. So please follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe.   And now, let's jump right in with Irene Au.   TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS   [5:54] Life in the Present [7:08] Early Childhood Driving Forces [9:40] A Journey to Design [13:20] Entering Netscape [16:00] The Challenges of the Early Internet [19:23] A Transition From Netscape to Yahoo! [22:58] The Infrastructure of Yahoo! [30:14] Good Design Versus Bad Design [34:04] The Winners and the Failures [39:48] Infusing Design With Google [45:55] Design Thinking Workshops [52:13] A Sideways Career Move [58:35] What is Design Today? [1:05:26] The Human Meaning of Design [1:08:58] A Short Sermon   EPISODE LINKS Irene's Links

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor NumbersIf you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends October 1st 2022. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: https://www.hrp.org.uk/https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-londonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/cate-milton-585a8613/https://superbloom.hrp.org.uk/content/ticket-options Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world.In today's episode, I speak with Cate Milton, Customer Experience Programme Officer at Historic Royal Palaces. Cate shares her infectious passion for customer experience and talks us through the six-month customer journey mapping exercise they carried out with KPMG. If you like what you hear, subscribe on all the user channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Cate, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I'm really excited to speak to you.Cate Milton: Thank you so much. I'm really just as excited to speak about anything that's customer experience. So I'm excited.Kelly Molson: It's going to be a good chat, then. But first of all, I have to ask you some icebreaker questions, so we don't get to chat about customer experience quite yet. I'm going to ask you what your favourite breakfast food is.Cate Milton: Oh my God, that's a curve ball. I don't really do breakfast.Kelly Molson: Oh.Cate Milton: I get up in the morning and I feel it's way too early for my stomach to be dealing with anything like food, so I think if I'm being good, then it's usually a yogurt or some raisins. That makes me sound a lot healthier than I am.Kelly Molson: My goodness, doesn't it?Cate Milton: I mean, today it was a blueberry muffin, so it pretty much depends what's nearby. Yesterday, it was Cheeselets. So yeah, I hope my mum doesn't listen. Her main fear of me is that I'm not eating properly, and I just proved her correct there on breakfast.Kelly Molson: Oh yeah, well, listen to this though. Although, I would say that Cheeselets are an extremely tasty breakfast, so why not?Cate Milton: Honestly, I'm addicted, and now they're coming out in the picnic boxes and every time this year my entire family's like, "Find them. Stock up." Find them for me. But yeah, it's maybe not the most nutritious start to the day, but there we go.Kelly Molson: All right. Cheeselets or yogurt and raisins.Cate Milton: Yeah, not all together. Not all together, just-Kelly Molson: A balanced breakfast. Okay. What show on Netflix did you binge-watch embarrassingly fast? Cate Milton: Oh, that's a good question. So, my absolute favourite one... I got obsessed with it during lockdown like everybody else did when there was nothing else to do... was Mindhunter. So, it's kind of about the beginning of the FBI. So, anything with that kind of psychological twist. I mean, I am the cliche millennial in the true crime and I'm there like, "Oh, what's wrong with all these people?" But, Mindhunter was so good. I think they only did a couple of series and they keep kind of promising maybe a third, but nothing yet. But yeah, I did that in about two or three days... But there was nothing else to do. Everyone go watch it. Maybe if everyone watches it, then maybe they will make a third series. But yeah, the beginning of the FBI and all that kind of profiling and where all that came from.Kelly Molson: This is on my list, because I like a little true crime-Cate Milton: Oh, amazing.Kelly Molson: ... series as well. So that is on our list to watch, so I'm really glad that you recommended that, because I wasn't quite sure.Cate Milton: So good. And Jonathan Groff is in it, because he also plays the King in Hamilton. So it's really strange seeing him do this. I think he's known for musical theatre a bit more, and then in this kind of really straight role about kind of creating that psychological profiling of kind of the worst that humanity has to offer, yeah, he's amazing. But yes, watch it, put it to the top of your list. Definitely.Kelly Molson: I will do that. Third and final icebreaker question: if money and time were no object, what would you be doing right now?Cate Milton: Traveling, 100%. But that's misleading. I'm not ever going to pretend I'm the kind of traveler with a rucksack. I need something on wheels, so I would be going places with the suitcases, not having to worry about what the cheapest airport transfer is, how to get places. I would be having a lovely time. I'd never see winter again, definitely. I'm not a winter person. I'm loving the sun. So yeah, from a very selfish point of view, rather than trying to fix the rest of the world, I would be just following the sun all year round, having a lovely time.Kelly Molson: That's fine. It's your money, it's your time, you do whatever you want with it.Cate Milton: I would also donate to charity and save the whales.Kelly Molson: Saved it. Now that was a classic millennial answer.Cate Milton: Okay, yeah.Kelly Molson: All right, Cate, what is your unpopular opinion? What have you got for us?Cate Milton: I feel like this is quite unpopular. I'm also a little bit worried that if I say it that anyone listening straight away going to be like, "Well, she has no idea what she's talking about, so I'm not going to listen to the rest of this."Kelly Molson: Don't worry. Honestly, there's been some real shockers on here. You'll be good.Cate Milton: So, my unpopular opinion is that I think that tea, coffee, and alcohol are the most disgusting things on the planet. I do not understand how so much of this country is powered by one of those three things. I can't stand the taste of any of them, so I have lived my life without any of them. Maybe it's more I've got the taste palette of a child, although there's also a possibility I'm a super taster, so I'm just very sensitive and that's probably a superpower. So actually, it's all you guys that are wrong. I've just evolved out of the universe.Kelly Molson: I love this, but this is how you look so fresh-faced as well, because you don't drink the coffee-Cate Milton: Well, I don't know.Kelly Molson: ... and you don't drink the alcohol. So we are in the wrong.Cate Milton: It helps more in the money point of view, I'm not going to lie. That definitely makes a night out cheaper, but no, any fresh-facedness is down to my very complex skincare regime that I developed over the lockdown, so that's where all the money goes instead.Kelly Molson: Okay. Not enough care days. Right, listeners, tell us how you feel about Cate's unpopular opinion. Yeah, it's an interesting one. My husband's actually teetotal at the moment. He's just gone off the alcohol. Just doesn't like the effects that it leaves him with. It really affects his mood. So yeah, he's just cut it out and it's quite liberating really, isn't it?Cate Milton: Honestly, too, I've had it all the way through, so it made uni quite difficult because as soon as anyone will meet you the first question you're having to answer is, "Why don't you drink?" But definitely in the last kind of five years or so it's not a question I get so much anymore. It's just say, "Oh, okay then." So, I think there is a general trend in people... for whatever reason. There's a whole range of reasons, like trying not to drink for a little while or deciding they don't want that in their lives anymore. It's a lot more common. So, I don't have to answer that question so often because the next bit was always, "It's okay. I've got something that you'll love."Kelly Molson: But it shouldn't be a question, should it? It's just, "I don't drink." Okay.Cate Milton: How it is. I can just about manage the super sweet, if it's really sweet. So just a lot of sugar, then I can just about nurse one cocktail for about... But it will take me six hours or so to drink it. It's not something that I enjoy and it goes down nice and smooth. So yeah, unless somebody's bought it for me because they're being nice, it's not something that I partake in most of the time.Kelly Molson: Then there's the guilt of having to drink it, I guess.Cate Milton: Yeah, exactly. I'm just there sipping like, "Yeah, no, I don't need another one. This is really nice. Thank you."Kelly Molson: Okay. Right, tell us how you feel. I don't think that's too unpopular at all, Cate. Cate, you are the Customer Experience Programme Officer at Historic Royal Palaces.Cate Milton: Yes.Kelly Molson: I want to know about this role. Tell us what it involves because I'm guessing very broad.Cate Milton: Yes, you could say that. So, yeah. So I work for Historical Palaces. I actually work across all six sites. So, I'm based at the Tower. The Tower is my home and I've got the most experience in the Tower, because I originally started in Heritage, in Operations at the Tower of London. But now yeah, I work across the Tower, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court, Banqueting House, Kew Palace, and as well as Hillsborough Castle over in Northern Ireland. So yeah, I'm kind of there looking across customer experience and initiatives across those sites, trying to make sure that we've kind of got that one standard for HRP and what customer experience means, customer service means from an HRP point of view.Cate Milton: So yeah, it is quite broad. It's anything from kind of creating our customer service standard that I did with colleagues in Operations, goodness, two years ago now, I think, just before we reopened from the first lockdown, right up to more strategic things about where we need to aim for, where we need to focus our attention, having a look at a lot of customer journeys and understanding the end-to-end journey for all our sites.Cate Milton: I am the only one in my department. I am a department all by myself, so there's a lot of advocating for what customer journeys mean and joining up bits of the organisation. Not entirely by myself: I have the support of my visitor experience group, which is our operations directors, our public engagement, director and our commercial director, and all the op scenes across the site, too. I think in Operations you know how complex the journey is, you see the whole thing. So I think they're the teams I work most closely with; as well as overseeing things that are related to visitor feedback.Cate Milton: So, there's so much data. We have so much information on our visitors and what they think, what they feel, what their expectations are. So there's a little kind of work with our customer insight manager about how we best collate that, use it, spot the trends. So yeah, and also I just get deployed, really, to any kind projects that might need... Yeah, I suppose a little focus on customer experience, and I pipe up with annoying things like, "That's not customer journey-"Kelly Molson: Not thought about this.Cate Milton: "... So can we not do that." Yeah. I'm so lucky I get to get involved in basically anything that needs that kind of customer focus, which, in a visitor attraction, is nearly everything. So, it's an amazing role and, yeah, in a great place.Kelly Molson: What a job. What a job.Cate Milton: I landed on my finger this one. It's not too bad.Kelly Molson: Well, I mean, firstly: they are not terrible places to go to work every day, are they? I mean, what a place.Cate Milton: It ruins you for life though, because if anyone says to me now that you have to go to work in an old office block, it's very much, "Yeah, so where's the armed guard outside the office door? How many draw bridges do I have to go over? How many portcullises are there to go under? None? Okay, no. Well that's boring, isn't it?"Kelly Molson: It's not for me, then.Cate Milton: Exactly. Like it's, I say, "I'm sorry. I'm a palace-only person these days." But no, honestly, it's absolutely stunning. And actually, the previous governor who worked here, who kind of gave my first chance at the tower... So he's been very much a mentor to me, but I always remember him saying that, "If you ever come to work one day and you're not just awed by where you are, then it's time to leave and let somebody else come in, because you should just never forget the sites you're working at and the kind of connection to history that they've got." Yeah, I still, I still get the kind of, "Oh my God, the White Tower." It's still absolutely... I've been here coming here on and off eight years, with different roles and everything, and I still don't get over it.Kelly Molson: That's amazing. So you still get the goosebumps, you still get the-Cate Milton: Oh, completely, completely. You just walk under an archway and there are little faces carved into the arch, and they've seen every monarch since Henry III. Every single monarch we've had, like some of the biggest events in world history, have happened within these walls or at Hampton Court with Henry VIII, or Banqueting House. Charles the First was executed outside Banqueting House. So, some real key history where it happened moments have happened at our sites, and it's amazing that we get to kind of invite people in to share those stories.Kelly Molson: Well, how did you get... because you said that this, you've really landed on your feet. This is a dream role.Cate Milton: Yeah.Kelly Molson: What did you study beforehand to bring into this role?Cate Milton: So, I started... uni-wise, I did English and history degree, and then, because I graduated in the last recession, so I ended up working in schools in Essex and as a PA, and at the time, honestly, that's all I wanted to be. I was just like, I'm happy being a PA. I like organising things." It's a brilliant job if you like organising you, just sitting there really understanding nuts and bolts of things. And then I saw the PA job advertised for the governor of the Tower of London, and the Tower has been, honestly, my favourite place in the world since I was about five or six. I have a picture my grandmother took of me at the gates, kind of just like, "Let me in, let me in."Cate Milton: So getting it was a complete, complete dream come true, but I got it based on the fact I just sat there and said, "Yeah, I just want to be a PA. That's my dream. I just want to be a PA. I've got no other aspirations." But within nine months I had made the most of an opportunity to move into Ops, and then from then on I was just like, "This is what I should do. I love making stuff happen, I love working here, I love heritage. This fits who I am. This is what I want to do." So, I was there for a little bit. I was lucky enough to run an event called The Constable's Installation.Cate Milton: So, every four or five years, the Queen nominates her representative at The Tower of London, which is known as the Constable of the Tower. We've had one since 1078, so it's not a position that many people have had. And we had this big ceremony that the Lord Chamberlain comes to to install the Constable, and I was fortunate enough to be the first woman and the first civilian to run that installation in 2016.Kelly Molson: Gosh.Cate Milton: And I mean, it's still one of the best days of my life, but I peaked really, really early. I peaked at 28. That's it now, it's all downhill for now on. But doing that mix of operations and big ceremonies and events, I was kind of pinched by English Heritage to be their event manager for a couple of years, actually working with Lucy Hutchings, who I've then been working with at Hampton Court-Kelly Molson: Oh, lovely.Cate Milton: That's been really nice. Yeah. And then, I kept an eye on what was happening at HRP, because it was very much like... English Heritage is an absolutely fantastic organisation, but I'm very London-centric, so yeah, when this role came up I had the right combination of, "I've been in Ops, I've been on the front line. I understand, I care about what that experience looks like." So yeah, I applied for the role and the mothership called me home and I came back to the Tower.Kelly Molson: Oh, goodness. That's so amazing.Cate Milton: Yeah. So, I've had a lovely time the last eight years. I've been very lucky.Kelly Molson: Yeah.Cate Milton: I've been here for the last four, and it's been such a learning curve, because we originally started with a programme called [inaudible 00:14:47] and Distinctive, which is around customer experience and that's now become a little bit more kind of business as usual. But I've learnt so, so much in the last four years and really cemented that customer experiences is the bit I love the most, that I really want to do.Kelly Molson: Oh. You've left the PA dreams. You've left them behind.Cate Milton: I know. Yeah, they've fallen by the wayside a little bit and then now it's just like, I want to run things.Kelly Molson: Bigger dreams. Cate Milton: Exactly.Kelly Molson: Bigger dreams.Cate Milton: Absolutely.Kelly Molson: There's a lot... I've got so many questions for you based on what you just talked through, but we spoke a couple of weeks ago and you talked to me about the customer journey mapping exercise that you went on with KPMG, and I was really interested in this because it is really... It's similar to what we do in digital. So, we look at user journeys and we plot out where people are going to go on the site and what journeys we want to take them on, and it sounds very similar, but obviously it's in the real world. And I wanted to get you to talk that through. Tell us how you go about that. What was the need for it, to start with?Cate Milton: Yeah. So, customer journey mapping is such a vital tool for understanding the entire end-to-end journey for your customers. For example, at HRP sites we had departments who are kind of looking after individual touchpoints of our customer journey, particularly on site. But, in order to make the journey as seamless as possible and to be the best possible experience, it's essential that all of those touchpoints link together beautifully and they don't kind of jar that one department wants to do things this way and another does it this way, and... It just gets a bit jarring to go through that journey.Cate Milton: So, the customer experience overall suffers a little bit. But when you're looking at customer journey map, it really gives you that picture of this is where our customer starts, and this is the kind of thing that they're feeling, these are emotions, this is what their expectations are, and then takes you through every single touchpoint, right until the end, which is in, our case, they've gone offsite. What kind of post-visit relationship do we have with them after that?Cate Milton: So, for us it was very much the ambition to visualise that, to map that out, to get a, I suppose like a Bible of customer experience where everything is in that one place, so we can all be working to the same document, we can all understand the same thing, have the same vision, and really start kind of picking out those areas that we could focus on to improve what is... don't get me wrong... already an excellent visitor experience. We are some of the most amazing sites, some of the most amazing front-of-house teams. So it's going from good to great, rather than, "Oh my God, this is horrendous. We need to fix this."Cate Milton: So it's just where those little areas are that we could push ourselves kind of up a little bit more. So yeah, we got the help of KPMG to do that, because it was, it was not an approach that HRP had had done previously, so we needed that kind of outside consultancy, advice on how to go about that. And yeah, we worked with them on the processing of gathering all the information, the data and insight that we had, which was a mammoth task. We have a lot. We have all sorts of kind of surveys that are done about different exhibitions, or exit surveys. We have the ALVA benchmarking. There's so much information that we have just dotted around at different places, so trying to bring that all together to understand the picture that our visitors have been telling us, the information is there: what they want to see, what their expectations are, motivations, what they need on site. So, it's all that information.Cate Milton: We also ran workshops and did service safari. So, that is essentially taking a cross-palace team and kind of giving them a role for the day, giving them a persona. So, for example, you're the Walker family today. So, get your mind... We did some empathy mapping to really get people's minds into, "I'm a family. I've got a young child and a slightly old child, what do I need? Have I got buggy? Have I got to take things, am I going to need changing rooms?" All those kind of considerations. So, we gave people different personas so they could really kind of connect with some of our general groups of visitors. This is one of the frustrations, because you can't cover everybody. You do have to be very general, and there are going to be gaps in that, but some of that you can kind of cover off later. But yes, we did these service safaris and got our teams to do a visit, and to start looking at things from a visitor's point of view.Kelly Molson: That's so interesting. So, it is your own internal team that you take through this process?Cate Milton: Exactly, exactly. And it was always important to make sure that we had other members of staff who aren't used to that particular site. So, with KPMG we did Kensington and Tower of London, and it's one of those things with the best one in the world: you get blindness with your own site, because you see things day after day, you know what you're trying to focus on, what you're trying to improve, but sometimes you just stop seeing some of the things; stop seeing through the trees kind of thing. So, it's really helpful to get those other members of staff that aren't there every single day, and it's fascinating what comes out, and it's so useful for members of staff to really see like, "Oh yeah, why are we expecting us to do that?" Or, "That's actually quite difficult. Why are we doing it like that?"Cate Milton: It's so useful, and honestly, I mean, even if it's not a process, the customer data mapping is not a process that other organisations want to go through, I completely recommend doing service safaris. It really opens people's eyes. But we also had a lot of kind of one-to-one conversations with members of staff from across the organisation, and one of the most important groups in that was front of house. Visitor feedback is essential in understanding what our visitors want, and their opinions on stuff, but a lot of stuff that we got, for example, in our CRM, where visitors have contacted our contact centre, that's either the stuff that they absolutely love and is amazing or the stuff that's really upset them.Cate Milton: There's a massive gap in the middle there that our front of house team see every day in terms of minor irritations. It puts friction in, but it's not enough for someone to complain about. We need to look at that stuff as well. That's the everyday stuff that just jars with you a little bit. You just think, "Oh, that was a bit rubbish." And that stays in you. It might not be that's something you want to complain about later on, but it's still that you're going to go to friends and sort of say, "Yeah, it was good. I mean, this bit was a bit annoying."Cate Milton: So, it's so important to engage front of house teams to kind of have spies on the ground, to know what they're always asked about, to know the visitors always go the wrong way in this bit. Is it clear what room they're in? Is it clear where the toilets are, if the map's okay? So, we did quite a bit of work about talking to those guys, as well. And it's just kin of collating all of this data that everybody's got. It's just a matter of putting it together and, yeah, putting it into this, this tool that shows you what's happening at at each touchpoint. The most valuable thing, I think, the snapshot that comes from it, is the emotional journey of the customer.Cate Milton: So, obviously what you want in an ideal world is that they come in feeling okay and they leave thinking, "This is the most amazing thing. That was great. I loved every connection I had with that organisation." And that's what you're aspiring to, as well as everything nice and green and happy in the middle. But, that emotional journey graph really gives you a snapshot of, "Oh, okay. Well, things are dropping a little bit here. What going wrong here, or what can we improve here, or how has something earlier on not set this up properly? And if we fix this, is this going to effect later on?" So, it's such a valuable tool to really get that idea of what our visitors, what our customers are actually going through.Kelly Molson: That's epic though, isn't it? I mean, the amount of information that you need to have for that, and to do it really well, too. How long does a process like that take?Cate Milton: So, in terms of the data we already had, obviously we were talking kind of years of data. Customer journey mapping, you could either do it as a snapshot of the current state, or you can be a bit more aspirational and do it as a snapshot of kind of where you want to get to. It's most useful, really, to kind of have a combination of... to have two. But yeah, for us it was doing an in-depth audit of all the bits of information we had, making sure that KPMG had access to that, and we went through it with them about what this means, what this doesn't. There's also that kind of complication of, well, something exceptional happening three years ago. That means that's skewed that data a little bit.Kelly Molson: Right.Cate Milton: So what can we look into that is the kind of justification. So, for example, if our ticketing system had a blip and we get loads of complaints about that, we know that, we've solved that, and we don't need to worry too much about that, but we maybe need to record it's annoying if the ticking system has a moment. But overall, I mean, it took us maybe about six months to do with KPMG and kind of getting through all these stages of looking at the visitor staff, looking at the employee staff, looking at which departments feed into which parts, and also just identifying all the touch points. I think we've ended up with something around 70 to 80 individual touchpoints from start to finish on an onsite journey.Cate Milton: So that's only what we're talking about when visitors actually come online on site. We also have, like you were saying earlier, digital journeys that our digital engagement team look at. We have membership, we have schools, we have people with accessibility requirements. They all have a different journey.Cate Milton: There's all sorts of different things to layer on top of that you can kind of factor in. But, it was, it was very in depth and just absolutely fascinating, and a really good opportunity to kin of get everyone on board the same thing as well, and to get departments that kind of sit alongside each other, but maybe don't overlap so often. Or, we're the same as many other organisations, multi-site organisations that sometimes silos or kind of barrier, and doing things like this really starts to show everyone how they're part of the entire, and that cross-department working is really, really useful.Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's re-engaging the internal team with the visitor as well, isn't it, because you've put them in their in their shoes-Cate Milton: Absolutely.Kelly Molson: ... and you've mentioned empathy. What was it you called it?Cate Milton: Yeah. So, we did some empathy mapping, where essentially we kind of, before we sent people out on that service safari we gave them these personas and we gave them kind of questionnaires about, "What do you think this person or this group of people is looking for? What do you think their main considerations are? What do you think their main worries are? What do they need on site? What they trying to get out of it?" I mean, KPMG made us, created us some personas that combined things like our cultural segments, as well and making sure we've got that overlap between motivations and needs. Personas are a key part of customer journey mapping, and yeah, kin of creating... Say it's the general kind of average visitor, which is incredibly difficult for a lot of sites, because we've got-Kelly Molson: They don't exist, do they?Cate Milton: Exactly. Do you know what I mean? We've got people from all over the world or different backgrounds, so that is a difficult thing. But, I think one of the other things to kind of bear in mind with customer journey mapping is you don't want to get analysis paralysis. I suppose you don't want to kind of get into that mindset where you are kind of analyzing so much that you don't just get something done. It is so important to get started because the thing with customer journey maps is they're not static documents. That's not it. You don't create one and then, "Oh, we're done now. This is what it looks like."Cate Milton: You take it, you learn from it, you update it, you review it, you take kind of opportunities from it. You look at how else you can track and wonder about trends, so if you can prove something you kind of keep an eye on feedback, see it and re-improve that. So, it keeps moving. That's its value, is that it's a live document that you keep updating to see how the journey moves and where the weak points get to, and eventually you end up with just five across the board and you're like, now you're done. Now you-Kelly Molson: I'm sure that is not the case.Cate Milton: No, I don't think so.Kelly Molson: You went through this process six months. Actually, yeah, that was interesting, because I thought that you were going to say it was longer. I was expecting you to say it was a year's process.Cate Milton: Yeah.Kelly Molson: So, six months. What were the outcomes from that, and what have you had to improve because of it?Cate Milton: So, I think one of the biggest outcomes... Because I should also say that we, the delivery of this, got pushed forward slightly because the end of the world happened. So, we kind of got to spring 2020, getting to the point where we were just about to understand everything there is to know, and then obviously it just disappeared.Kelly Molson: Right? The world went, "Ah-ah-ah-ah."Cate Milton: Yeah, exactly.Kelly Molson: "Ready or not."Cate Milton: Like, "Okay then, so there's no customers to improve the experience of right now." So, that obviously put a pause on things for a little while, but one of the biggest things I think it gave a focus to, which is one of the major outcomes, was like you said, kind of helping people refocus on the visitor, on the customer. What it meant was we were able to demonstrate that operations really have ownership of that entire journey, and we have kind of... I mean, they're a bit more than subject matter experts, but like our interpretation teams, our curatorial teams, they support Ops and Ops support them to deliver.Cate Milton: But, it was just really important that we started moving towards an organisation where operations control and own that end-to-end journey, so that someone does and so that there's consistency in delivery, so that we aren't switching back and forth between different departments, which, internally we can work like that. That's fine. We understand about how it's this person interpretation and it's this person, but we don't want our visitors to feel like there's effort between touchpoints. They see it as sterile palaces, that's what we need to present it as. So, it made sense for operations to really kind of, I suppose, step up and take ownership of that, and our structure now reflects that as well.Cate Milton: So, I think in terms of kind of outcomes, it was a lot of kin of realisation of how best to run a customer experience. And also, just the fact that, like I said, we had so many different overlaps of things, and it kind of starts drawing out as well the themes throughout the entire organisation, but also there's places where the palaces, are different and there's a balance to be struck there about, they have to be different. They tell different stories, they have different personalities, but we want it to be an HRP standard, so how does that apply to each of the different sites?Cate Milton: So, after we did Tara Kensington, we've also got a ticketing journey map as well. I've just done the Hampton Court one. So, for the first time HRP has done a customer journey map by themselves, so I went out and did the Hampton Courts customer journey map, and we'd just come to the conclusion of that and fed back to the workshop group. So, kind of having that learning about how to approach these things, how to do it, how to be sustainable on our own so that we don't have to keep going back and say, "We've got another one. Can you help us do another one?" Yeah, and hopefully we'll be able to do Hillsborough and then go back and start, as I said before, layering the schools and community visits; absolutely layering accessibility.Cate Milton: A colleague of mine made the really good point that that should be a priority for us, and 100% agree. Some of our sites are incredibly challenging for people with different access requirements because they weren't built that way.Cate Milton: Tower London in particular was built to keep people out, rather than welcoming two million or so visitors. So, there's challenges around that, and I think any other historic site would sympathise with that. So, I think it just kind of focused us, really. It focused us on what we can do for customer experience, and that it's an ongoing thing. It's not a, "we'll do it, we'll fix it, we'll move on." But also just the fact that... I think I've said briefly before that it's not about fixing individual touchpoints, and the best example, I guess... I keep wheeling out this one example to everyone to demonstrate it. It's where we've kind of, as everybody has moved to a more online ticketing model... Because that's the fluid expectations of customers, that's what people expect. They want to be able to self-serve and be able to sort themselves out. Great. We're brilliant, we're on that, people can do that.Cate Milton: But the problem is that if we are moving to that model and the majority of our visitors are booking online, when they turn up onsite, if they come to the West Gate at Hampton Court, the West Gate at Tower of London, they haven't had a chat with our great admissions team, so they haven't had a chance to orientate themselves. They haven't had a chance to be given a map and be told what's going on that day. They've kind of been able to skip that and go straight to a gate. So it's kind of, okay, so we've made that bit better and more seamless, but now we've moved a problem further down the line. So, it's understanding the changes to one touch point and how that impacts the rest of the journey. You can't just fix one thing in isolation and think, "Excellent, that will be up and green now," without considering its position in the entire, in the rest of the journey I think.Kelly Molson: That is such an excellent point, isn't it? You can't fix one touch point without it impacting another.Cate Milton: Absolutely.Kelly Molson: And how do you monitor the impacts when you do?Cate Milton: Yeah.Kelly Molson: Oh, goodness. I was going to ask you what was your biggest learning from the process, but it sounds like one of the biggest learnings was being able to do it yourself.Cate Milton: Yes. I don't have to do it now. No, it absolutely was. I was so valuable to watch the the guys from KPMG, because in terms of consultancy support they are some of the best, KPMG, some of the best in that kind of area of customer experience. So, it was amazing to kind of go through that. Also kind of understand some of the psychology behind it, and what we're trying to achieve and why, and even kind of watching them watching our visitors up on Tower Hill and understanding how they're moving, and how we might be able to improve that, and where their hesitations are, and what might be going on. That kind of understanding, that psychological factor, was so useful... so, so useful for me taking it on boards and taking it further for the organisation.Kelly Molson: Do you think as a result of this, as well, that the internal teams work better... Even though this was a process to help improve the customer's experience... do you think it's actually helped the internal teams?Cate Milton: Oh, completely, 100%, because it's now something we've got to refer to and they can see where they fit in. And that's not to say that people didn't realise that before, and it's absolutely not to say that everyone was just working in their own little kingdom before, but I think it gives a central focus point.Cate Milton: And so, the end of the world got in the way the little bit, so we are looking now to kind of... Now we've got the Hampton court one and we're putting in place the process for reviewing that, for reviewing our kind of customer experience backlog documents that we now have for each palace, to understand we need to get on with this area, this element. So for example, Hampton Court, we need some better signage in the car park, so we can get on with that first. That's a priority. We know that's a, that's a pain point.Cate Milton: So, we've kind of got these lists and we're putting in place this process for reviewing those, keeping us, holding ourselves to account, making sure we're getting on with things as and when we can; the same with, basically I guess, every other kind of museum, gallery, heritage attraction resource and funding is an issue for us at the moment. So it's just understanding kind of where those priorities are. But yeah, understanding that process and how we review it, and bringing all of those departments in and kind of working together on how we fix things or improve things, I think, is definitely going to be getting better and better as we go on. We're kind of about to relaunch it, in a way, now that we've got the Hampton Court one as well.Kelly Molson: Yeah.Cate Milton: Because it's taken a while for everyone to come back to work, to find their feet again. I don't know about anyone else, but it took me a long time to be able to focus for any more than five minutes at time, so now that we're back there and it's starting to look a bit more normal. We can really start kind of launching that, making sure the entire organisation understands what we've got, why we've got them, and how we intend to use them. So, that will be kind of a job for this summer and into the autumn.Kelly Molson: I mean, what a great experience, what a great process to go through, and it's had so many incredible outcomes.Cate Milton: Yes.Kelly Molson: What would be your top tips for any organisation that's about to embark on something similar?Cate Milton: I think that the most important thing is involve your colleagues, and involve them early. A lot of people... Obviously, there's always going to be demands on kind of time and energy, but making sure that people understand early how important they are to, and how important their work in their departments are to understanding everything is vital, and organisations can only be stronger for it. I'd also say in terms of our kind of visitor attraction organisations, front of house teams, making sure that their voice is absolutely heard, because it's one thing for somebody who's in the back office, tapping away, to start coming and saying, "We think this, and we're going to fix it with this," if you haven't actually asked the guys who are out on the grounds, answering the question of where the toilets are for the 50th time in hour.Cate Milton: So, I think that was the biggest thing for me, was making sure to whatever extent that you do customer daily mapping... because you can do a pretty informal version. You can take it to the extent that we did, but it's make sure that your front of house teams are heard and are a big part of it, I think.Kelly Molson: Good tip. Weirdly, that's where we go and start, as well, from digital perspective-Cate Milton: Oh, really?Kelly Molson: ... because people often think that you just talk to the marketing department because that's who you are engaged with, that's who's brought you on. But for us to understand where digital can support the organisation, we need to understand what challenges front of house are having, and then bring the two together?Cate Milton: Completely that.Kelly Molson: Completely. So glad. I knew we'd be aligned, Cate. I knew you would be. Right. We need to talk about Superbloom.Cate Milton: Yeah.Kelly Molson: I mean, spectacular. You're in the midst of it right now. For anyone who's watching this, or anyone who's listening to this and not watching the video... Why aren't you watching the video, because we are fabulous. Cate's in a high-vis jacket right now because she's actually on site-Cate Milton: Yep.Kelly Molson: ... in the midst of Superbloom.Cate Milton: Absolutely, yes. I'm out there as an event coordinator today. So, yeah, running around looking after our volunteers and our visitors, making sure that everything's running smoothly and, yeah, everyone's happy, which is a lot easier in beautiful sunshine like this.Kelly Molson: It is a glorious, glorious day, and it is an absolutely spectacular show piece, what you have there, so congrats on pulling it off.Cate Milton: Thank you so much. I mean, I can't take really any credit for it. Honestly, it's our interpretation teams have been working on this for about three years. It's been a really long buildup to the project. The work started onsite in about October, and then there's been a lot of, kind of, since I think late March, early April, a lot of kind of staring at soil, kind of like, "Are we okay? Are they coming?"Kelly Molson: "Please work."Cate Milton: And the thing is... I mean, honestly, I can't even explain what an amazing job they've done, and there's something like 20 million seeds planted in that moat, so that the scale of it cannot be underestimated.Kelly Molson: Gosh.Cate Milton: But yeah, we got there, we opened officially on the 1st of June just in time for the Jubilee weekend, and it was something that we learned from our commemorations of World War I's, for both the poppies and the flames: that the public really liked having the Towers as kind of a place, essential place to come and take part in national events. So, that's kind of where the thought came from about celebrating the Queen's Jubilee, with that kind of changing the moat again. We've upgraded from ceramic poppies to the real thing. There's a wonderful scattering of California poppies down there at the moment, so it's looking absolutely stunning. We've got everything from different smells going on, there's music down there, which honestly is so Zen. It's my favourite place to be. I'll just go walk through like, "I'm so calm right now. There is no City of London out there, there's no traffic. I'm just in the bed of flowers and this amazing music."Cate Milton: But yeah, it's been going really well, and yeah, it's one of those times where you just realise how strong your teams are. We've got kind of event coordinators who all have other jobs, that volunteered to come out and help on their days off or alongside their regular jobs. We've got volunteer coordinators who are mostly our front of house teams, who, as anyone will know, in a summer it's so busy onsite anyway, and then for them to offer to come and help in Superbloom on days off is incredible. So, it does... Yeah, without being too kind of gooey about it, it makes you really proud to be part of an organisation that kind of has the vision to do this and then moves forward and actually does it. And we also have a slide, which is-Kelly Molson: Oh, well, I mean, if you weren't sold before Cate mentioned the slide, I mean, tick. I'm there.Cate Milton: Come and slide into the moat. Do you know what, it's the most joyous thing. The kids love it, obviously, but my absolute favourite thing has been watching adults. We have grandmothers going off and going down, and it just... I want to be like them. I want to still have that kind of, I think, playfulness, but I'm kind of closer, a little bit closer, to the end of my run on this earth, but-Kelly Molson: Oh, phenomenal, yeah.Cate Milton: Absolutely. Yeah. It's a great event, and it's just something completely different in the city, and it represents the biggest change we've made to the moat... or, not HRP, but has been made to the moat since the Duke of Wellington drained it in eight, I think 1843.Kelly Molson: Okay.Cate Milton: So, since then it's been mostly turf. It's been kind of used for other practicalities, like allotments in World War II and so on, but yeah, it hasn't been changed to this extent since then, so it's a big mark in the history of the Tower, as well; as well as kind of acknowledging the Queen's achievement, and just helping the biodiversity a little bit of city of London, as well.Kelly Molson: Yeah.Cate Milton: One of the best bits is you are walking through the flowers, if you stop and look, they're moving. There's so many pollinators and wildlife in there. It's just, yeah. It's amazing. It's a very kind of wholesome, grounding, life isn't so bad kind of place to be.Kelly Molson: Yeah. I mean, Cate, you've absolutely sold it. Absolutely.Cate Milton: Oh good, everybody come.Kelly Molson: Everyone go visit. I mean, how could you not after that? Cate, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you. We always ask our guests to recommend a book, a book that you love, that you'd recommend to our listeners. What have you got for us?Cate Milton: So, this was so hard, honestly. I was sat there looking at my bookshelves because I've got everything from basically every book that's ever been written on Henry V, because I'm a geek on that side of things. I think one of the ones that kind of really woke me up to understanding the psychological side of customer experience a little bit more was Thinking Fast and Slow, which most people in this environment, I'm sure, have read or heard of. But, it's a great way of understanding what's going on in people's minds when they're just going around their everyday life. So yeah, that's been so helpful in terms of working out how to make things more seamless and making sure that people can do things automatically, and it's intuitive and obvious, which means the bigger part of them is free to enjoy and be happy and be excited about where they are.Cate Milton: So, I think that's definitely a big one for me. But, from a kind of personal side of view, if I'm not looking at heritage, then whales and dolphins are my absolute, absolute passion, and there's a book, called Leviathan, by Philip Hoare, who's... He's also a whale fanatic, and it's just his relationship with understanding the oceans, understanding kind of the history of whales, of whaling, the changing relationship between humanity and whales. It's my absolute favourite book. So yeah, if you want something a bit out there, a bit random, then Leviathan is an amazingly well-written book.Kelly Molson: That sounds beautiful. Well, I mean, neither of those books have been recommended on the podcast before. This is really interesting.Cate Milton: It's like, Thinking Fast and Slow, I was just like, I feel like everyone would've said that one because it's, yeah. The chapters are really short. It's kind of a concentrating read, but absolutely, it really sets out how humans think and why we are as we are, so I think it's really, really valuable in terms of thinking about customer experience.Kelly Molson: Yes, great. I'm absolutely amazed that nobody has recommended it before, but, right. Okay. So we... Well, Cate has blown my marketing budget, like most people do. So, we'll give you two books to win this month.Cate Milton: Thank you, thank you. Sorry about that.Kelly Molson: You know what to do, listeners: head over to our Twitter account, find this episode announcement, and retweet it with the words, "I want Cate's book..." Uh, books because there's two.Cate Milton: Yeah, sorry. Sorry.Kelly Molson: And you'll be in with a chance of winning them. So, go over and do that. Cate, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you.Cate Milton: Thank you so much. I honestly, I'm such a geek on this stuff, so it's so nice to have an excuse to talk about it.Kelly Molson: I've loved it. Well, feel free to come back on any time and talk more about it, because it's been a delight.Cate Milton: Thank you so much.Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.  

For years, as long as the lights stayed on green and the tech was working, IT employees had done their job while tucked away in a nondistrcipt cubicle.   Fast forward to today and the hybrid work life as well as the growing need for user employee experience has revolutionized how IT is run.   However, this creates a block: How do employers continue to cater to their customers while making sure their employees have the workspace and tools they need to thrive?   In today's episode, we chat with Adam Harding, Chief Technologist at Softcat, about personalization of the employee and user in the IT industry.  We discuss:  How standardization helps the few not the masses   The consumerization of digital transformation  Why the employee experience and user experience is the future of IT  For more amazing DEX content, including podcasts, articles and exclusive research, head over to the DEX Hub (dex.nexthink.com) To hear more interviews like this one, subscribe to the Digital Employee Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.  Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Digital Employee Experience in your favorite podcast player.

For this week's UX potpourri session, Darren answers questions and addresses topics presented to him via social media: 1) The best ways for newcomers to learn about UX; 2) Developing a filter (to help overcome the barrage of misinformation circulating in UX today and 3) The best way to approach and learn about the 4 Pillars of UX. Tune in for the deets!#ux#eq#podcasts#cxofmradio#cxofm#realuxtalk#worldofux#uxpotpourriCheck out the new World of UX website at https://www.worldoux.com.Visit the UX Uncensored blog at https://uxuncensored.medium.com.

Kevin Newton is Manager of UX Research Practice at LinkedIn; in this episode, he shares insights on how he's scaling a research team at a large and growing company. His team is also working on a unique effort to quantify what it means to have a “simple” user experience, and its relationship to LinkedIn's metrics and revenue. 

In this episode of Digital Insurance Pint Podcast, Taylor Rhodes joins the show. Former US Marine, Arizona Rancher and Rush Fan, Taylor Rhodes, is getting the Applied System's troops ready for the next round of the Canadian Broker management systems business wars. Scratching your head on Applied? – not so fast. What is cool about Mr. Rhodes; he is new to the insurance industry and has no insurance “dirty laundry” to air. He sees the insurance industry as an underutilized digital playground that needs fresh blood to accelerate connectivity. In this episode, Taylor (while drinking a good La Fin Du Monde 9% Quebec beer) talks about 3 key areas that Applied is focusing on: 1. Velocity 2. User Experience (#ux) 3. Digital Connectivity In addition, we get an update on many of the Applied System's newest products, including Policyworks, Indio, Applied mobile (CSR 24), salesforce integration, and Applied Automation. Taylor also talks about the 5 key trends shaping business today and we pull back the covers and talk about how Google's investment and expertise have helped improve Applied. Over the last 20 months, Taylor has been putting his stamp on the Applied organization. To steal a Rush lyrics, he is doing all of the above to bring the user experience and client experience “closer to the heart.” Taylor is a breath of fresh air that Canada's biggest BMS system needs to fuel their Epic business transformation. Join Tom Reid, Steve Earle, Adam Mitchell, and Jeff Roy as they open the tap and raise the bar with Taylor Rhodes. P.S. What happened to Jeff's glasses? Resources: Tom Reid Jeff Roy Steve Earle Adam Mitchell Digital Insurance Pint Podcast

Today we have the power to define business context throughout the entire technology stack. But how do you correlate application performance and end-user experience to business KPI's? You need a partner offering full stack observability to optimize performance, resource allocation and uptime. From infrastructure to network to end users, observability not only finds the problem but the specific line of code that needs attention. Pick an application and get it monitored with AppDynamics for free here https://www.rackspace.com/lp/ctl-if-these-apps-could-talk Special Guest: Keith Llorens.

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor NumbersIf you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends October 1st 2022. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: https://twitter.com/rubbercheesehttps://twitter.com/TheChiefCheesehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson/https://bit.ly/rc-attraction-website-survey-2022https://www.rubbercheese.com/insights/visitor-attraction-website-survey/ Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Hey everyone. It is just me today. No lovely guest for you. You just have to put up with the sounds of my twangy Essex voice. Sorry. But listen, I've got something to share with you all today. And if you work in the marketing or digital department of your visitor attraction, then this is something that you are going to be really interested in. But first, let me tell you a little story. This story is about webinar and cart abandonment rates. I know what you're thinking. It's going to be a really rubbish story, but you would be wrong. Anyway, back at the beginning of the year, the lovely folk at Kallaway PR asked me to host a webinar for their clients. And that webinar was about how to improve cart abandonment rates. "Great," I thought. "I can talk about this all day long. I know the best way to improve cart abandonment rates is to improve the booking journey," and that is something that we talk about at Rubber Cheese all the time.So off I truck to find the sector data to back up my theories. And that is where this story ends because there is no specific data for the sector. So I can tell you the average bounce rate for a pharmaceutical website or what the cart abandonment rate for a travel website is. It's about 80%, but I can't give you any averages or any of specific datas for an attraction website because the data just does not exist. There's no sector data for average page loads times, or bounce rates or even website visitors. So at Rubber Cheese, we are going to change that.We have launched the first 2022 Visitor Attraction Website Survey. So let's face it. The past two years have been pretty transformational for the sector and they've transformed how visitor attractions operate online, probably forever. With the increased need for online bookings, additional revenue drivers, and a seamless on and offline experience, it's more important than ever for visitor attraction marketers, to understand how their website is actually performing.But the trouble is knowing what good looks like is almost impossible until we uncouple visitor attractions from the travel and tourism industry sector because it skews the data. So, supported by ALVA and ASVA, we are calling on hundreds of visitor attractions to anonymously complete this research to help our vibrant industry grow. The survey will allow you to benchmark your website against national averages. It'll give you a deep dive into specific attraction types in specific locations, and be able to compare website performance within those sectors. You'll know what great looks like and where you currently sit and it'll help you build arguments for future investment in your website and digital channels. It's going to help you plan for the future and the ongoing recovery of this sector. And look, the survey, it only takes 15 minutes to complete.You're going to need access to your Google Analytics, but 15 minutes of your time is really all it will take. And for that, you'll receive a brilliant report, access to a launch event, and do some good too, as we're making a donation to the British Red Cross Ukraine Crisis Appeal for every full response that we receive. If you're interested, I'd urge you to go and check out the survey now, and you can find that on our website, which is rubbercheese.com/visitor-attraction-website-survey-2022. Or if you just head over and follow us on Twitter, which is Rubber Cheese, then you'll find us posting out lots of information about it there. Or if you follow me on Twitter, which is The Chief Cheese, you'll find me posting about it too. Please fill the survey in. It will really, really help us get the data that will be so vital to know how you can improve your digital channels. Thank you.  

This week, Darren concludes the brief series on UX mentoring by recapping some of the key points mentioned in the previous episodes, as well as sharing a few unexpected bubble busters to help people along on their respective journeys. Tune in for the gold!#ux#eq#podcasts#cxofmradio#cxofm#realuxtalk#worldofux#mentoring#uxmentoringCheck out the new World of UX website at https://www.worldoux.com.Visit the UX Uncensored blog at https://uxuncensored.medium.com. 

About the Episode An interview with Saielle DaSilva. Saielle is Director of User Experience at Cazoo, an online car marketplace. Saielle believes in "putting the soft back into software", is a well regarded conference speaker, and also came out as a transgender woman to her friends & colleagues a few months ago. We speak about a lot, including: Her work at Cazoo, helping to transform a traditional industry for the good of users & the planet, and what "putting the soft into software" really means The start of her journey, how long she's known she's a woman and how no one chooses to be transgender for fun or because of peer pressure Her disappointment with celebrities that she used to admire or support, how transgender people are unfairly labelled by people with zero knowledge, and how everyone should be humble enough to do the work and learn to be better The transition roadmap - how she got ready, the step-by-step approach she took, how she was happy to find people were generally supportive and not as hateful as the mainstream media often portray The letter she wrote to her colleagues when she came out at work, the level of detail she went into, types of inappropriate questions transgender women get and her desire to avoid living "reality TV" transgender How troublesome the "Hugh Grant" style bumbling apology for misgendering your colleagues can be, and why you should just apologise and move on What we can all do, both through our company culture and our own actions to ensure we foster a diverse, welcoming workplace and help our transgender colleagues feel accepted & safe And much more!   Donate to Saielle's fundraiser Saielle is undergoing further surgery to help with her transition. If you would like to donate, please check out Saielle's fundraiser. Donate to gender diverse charities If you want to donate to charities that support gender diverse charities, check out Mermaids in the UK, or The Trevor Project in the US. Contact Saielle You can reach out to Saielle on Twitter or visit her blog.

In episode 30 of The Product Design Podcast, Seth Coelen interviews Jayneil Dalal, Staff Designer, Mentor, and Host of the design MBA Show! He took a significant leap of faith and transitioned into design after starting a career as an electrical engineer.During Jayneil's career in design, he has worked as a Product Designer, Lead, and Instructor and gained so much wisdom along the way. At the lowest point of his career, he realized the need to become an expert at networking to create opportunities for himself. He has developed and fine-tuned his cold email, networking, and job application techniques ever since. In this episode, Jayneil shares all of his secrets with us!During our interview with Jayneil you will learn:

Camtasia 2022 unlocks even more great features and capabilities than ever before. Joe Dearman, User Experience, and Brooks Andrus, Product Technical Manager at TechSmith, hopped on to this episode of The Visual Lounge to share their favorite features, what to expect from Camtasia 2022, how its “epic cursors” work, and much more. Joe and Brooks take us behind the scenes of Camtasia's development and how this new iteration aims to help video creators level up their content. Find out what new features to expect and see some sneak peek demos in the full episode. Learning points from the episode include: 0:00 – 4:06 Intro 4:07 – 5:39 The elevator pitch for Camtasia 2022 5:40 – 7:46 The path from idea to delivery 7:47 – 10:59 What's new with cursors in Camtasia 2022 11:00 – 14:39 Why the TechSmith team decided to focus on cursors 14:40 – 19:37 Why cursors are the new “lead actor” of videos 19:37 – 21:10 How to avoid overdoing it with cursor sizes 21:11 – 22:45 Camtastia demo time 22:46 – 27:20 Building a new central location in Camtasia 27:20 – 35:08 Camtasia's new templates and assets 35:09 – 40:06 The stars of the new library and what was most fun to develop 40:07 – 46:06 How to use Audiate within Camtasia to edit audio with text 46:06 – 48:08 Brooks' and Joe's top Camtasia features 48:08 – 50:47 What it's been like working in the TechSmith development team 50:47 – 58:22 Speed round 58:22 – 59:22 Outro Important links and mentions: Camtasia: https://www.techsmith.com/video-editor.html (https://www.techsmith.com/video-editor.html) What's New in Camtasia 2022: https://www.techsmith.com/learn/tutorials/camtasia/whats-new-camtasia/ (https://www.techsmith.com/learn/tutorials/camtasia/whats-new-camtasia/) Upgrade to Camtasia 2022: https://www.techsmith.com/camtasia-upgrade.html (https://www.techsmith.com/camtasia-upgrade.html) Learn more about the https://www.techsmith.com/academy.html (TechSmith Academy).

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor NumbersIf you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.Competition ends October 1st 2022. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: https://maryrose.org/https://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/https://twitter.com/DominicJonesUKhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicejones/ https://www.nmrn.org.uk/https://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/news/item/1152-buoyant-bounce-back-bodes-well-for-portsmouth-historic-dockyard Dominic Jones was recruited to the Mary Rose in 2019 ago as Chief Operating Officer, and became CEO in 2021.  He brings an excellent background in commercial visitor attractions (Disney, Merlin) and creative visitor experience development.During his time at the Mary Rose, he has already driven an excellent commercial and operational performance and worked closely with previous Chief Executive to create the new Portsmouth Historic Dockyard joint venture with the National Museum of the Royal Navy, which launched successfully in August 2020.  Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In today's episode, I speak with Dominic Jones, CEO of the Mary Rose Museum and Director of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Dominic shares the amazing impact of the joint venture between the Mary Rose Museum and the National Museum of the Royal Navy and his advice for any attractions looking to start and improve their partnership arrangements. If you like what you hear, subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Dominic. Welcome to Skip the Queue. Thanks for coming on.Dominic Jones: Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it, I think.Kelly Molson: You are looking forward to it. You don't need to think about it. Can we just point out, I know, listeners, you can't see this, but if you're watching this on YouTube, can we just see, you've got a lovely little, "I love Skip the Queue" graphic in the background there. Look at that.Dominic Jones: Yeah, I think it's important to get across that I do love Skip the Queue and it's important to get that across before the icebreaker questions, I think, just in case you had a couple and you were thinking, "Oh, I'm going to be a bit tough." And then, so I did that and I tweeted this morning how excited I am about your forthcoming website attraction questionnaire, so that's a double. That's a double positive, right?Kelly Molson: Thank you. Thank you. Don't worry, listeners. I've got a special little recording so you understand what we're talking about that will be coming out in the next week or so, so you'll find out more about that soon.Dominic Jones: And I bought you a rubber for your rubber collection. Can you see that? Mary Rose rubber?Kelly Molson: Wow. Look at that.Dominic Jones: You may or may not get that depending on how the icebreakers go, so that's my third attempt.Kelly Molson: Gosh, I've never been bribed for a good icebreaker question.Dominic Jones: It's not bribery. It's a nice gift. It's a nice gift.Kelly Molson: Right, well, let's get cracking on the icebreaker questions, shall we? I think I've been quite kind to you. Tell us something that you are really great at cooking.Dominic Jones: I really like cooking. I actually find cooking really relaxing, so on a Friday or Saturday, I often cook at home, so it depends, really. I quite like making my own recipes, so just using what we've got in the house. So for example, scallops with chorizo, or if you're doing a steak, might do it with some sort of watercress and various cheese, or just sort of experimenting. I really like sort of seeing what we've got, putting it together and making it work. I think it's important, when you're cooking, to drink some wine as well.Kelly Molson: Oh, I agree.Dominic Jones: So cooking with wine is something I enjoy doing.Kelly Molson: We can be friends, Dominic.Dominic Jones: There we go.Kelly Molson: Absolutely, we can be friends. Also, really great choices of food there. I would definitely eat both of those. You'd be really good on Ready Steady Cook, then. That would've been your show.Dominic Jones: Yeah. Do you know what? I used to... So I once applied for a game show, which I didn't get on, I was very disappointed, but Ready Steady Cook was one I think I could have done. Because it's not hard, is it? Most things go with things, and it's also about having the confidence to carry it off and knowing... The only time it went wrong was I wanted to cook for my girlfriend, who's now my wife, a lemon pasta dish and it tasted awful and it had lemon rind in it and stuff, so... But apart from that, it's always worked out.Kelly Molson: Well, I mean, you must have done all right. She married you.Dominic Jones: Yeah.Kelly Molson: She married you in the end.Dominic Jones: True.Kelly Molson: All right. Well, our next one, I've gone topical for this. If you were the captain of a pirate ship...Dominic Jones: Yeah?Kelly Molson: What would be the name of your ship?Dominic Jones: That's a good one. Oh. I do like pirates. I think, because I'm Welsh and because I'd want to be a pirate who... A bit like sort of the Warrior in the Dockyard, which isn't a pirate ship, by the way, but when it came in, people normally surrendered, I want to be a scary pirate that people would think, "Oh, don't..." Maybe, like, Smoking Dragon or something like that. And then we'd light smoke as we came in so people are like, "Oh, here's the Smoking Dragon."Kelly Molson: Yeah, I like that. And there'd be a big dragon's head on the front with flame and smoke coming out of it.Dominic Jones: And people... Because a lot of pirates were Welsh. I don't know whether you know this, but a lot of pirates were Welsh.Kelly Molson: I didn't know that.Dominic Jones: Yeah, it's massive.Kelly Molson: Wow.Dominic Jones: Massive.Kelly Molson: Okay. All right. This is great. That's an excellent answer.Dominic Jones: I have to say, these are slightly biased questions because I was listening to a few of your podcasts recently and, like, you had someone from the zoo, "Oh, what's your favourite animal?" Or you had someone from IAAPA, "What's your favourite ride?" And I'm getting a "name a pirate ship"? Know what I mean?Kelly Molson: All right, what's your favourite boat?Dominic Jones: No, only joking. I'm not going to answer that. I'm not going to answer that.Kelly Molson: All right, but what is your favourite smell? That's my last question.Dominic Jones: Genuinely, we're looking at smell now for the museum, because smell is so important, it's something that can make a difference. When I was at Madame Tussauds Amsterdam, we used smell, as well, as part of the experience, because it just creates that emotive moment. I do like cookie dough and cookies and the smell of that sort of baking which you get pumped in in Disney parks. I quite like the smell of red wine.Kelly Molson: Yeah. Yep.Dominic Jones: Yeah, so I think it's food or drink smells I like, but yeah. Good question.Kelly Molson: Good answer. We are at Unpopular Opinion Point. What have you got to share with us?Dominic Jones: This is a hard one because I've decided to go work on this and I did have some really cool ones about lager and N-Dubz and stuff, but I decided to go with work because one of the things that through my whole career, anyone who knows me will know is I get really frustrated when people blame the weather, so I think you shouldn't blame the weather for anything because what happens is when someone blames the weather, when the weather's... So I've worked in theme parks and in museums and aquariums, indoor and outdoor attractions, and you probably know that when it's bad weather, it's great for indoor attractions, when it's good weather, it's good for the theme parks, right?Dominic Jones: So you get people that, when it's good weather in theme parks or bad weather in museums, they say, "Oh, our marketing and our everything we're doing is brilliant because the visitors are coming." And as soon as it's the bad weather or the good weather, depending on what you are, then it's all about the weather. So, "Our visitors are down because the weather was good." If you're in an indoor attraction and it really, really irritates me, and it's one of those things, they're mutually exclusive, you can only blame the weather if you give the weather credit when it's good, and it's one of those things, if things are good, I always think you should look outside the window and think, "Right, what's the reason for that?" And then if things are bad, you should look inside your organisation. It's one of my pet hates, but probably doesn't work for the podcast, so I should probably go with the lager or N-Dubz one, but anyway, there we go. But it is important, right? I think it's a good one.Kelly Molson: It is important. No, I think, yeah, that is important. It's really interesting. I've never really thought about that before. We need to give the weather more credit.Dominic Jones: Well, you need to give the weather credit if you're going to use it to blame. For me, it's a constant. It's something... And these days, weather forecasts are 10, 14 days out, so you should be able to plan.Kelly Molson: Yeah. Okay. Good. All right.Dominic Jones: I'll get off my high horse now. Yeah.Kelly Molson: Listeners, let us know how you feel, so let us know if you want to know about that N-Dubz one as well. I'm intrigued. Right, Dominic, I want you to tell us about your background because we met up recently, didn't we, at the M+H exhibition? And you were very humble about coming on the podcast and you said, "Oh, I'm not going to have anything... You've had really interesting people on and I'm not that interesting." You are really interesting and you've had such an incredible background. Tell us a little bit about it and how you got to where you are now.Dominic Jones: Well, I'm not sure about that. I do like listening to your podcast and you have some amazing guests and 9 times out of 10, I normally think, after listening to them, "Right, I'm going to either do something that they've suggested." Or I follow them on LinkedIn or Twitter and think, "Right, let's learn from them." Because I think you should always learn from other people, but so my career is a lot of luck, a lot of opportunity and a lot of chats.Dominic Jones: When I was growing up, I wanted