Brave UX with Brendan Jarvis 🇺�‪�‬ The Space InBetween

Andy Vitale shares his experiences as an executive design leader, how he’s successfully scaled several design orgs, and why a career in pro wrestling wasn’t for him.
Highlights include:
Why do you create a five year plan for the design orgs you lead?
How has Grey’s Anatomy informed the design of your design organisations?
Why go to the trouble of helping someone who’s struggling in an interview?
How do you navigate the expectations of being the most senior design leader?
How do you feel you’ve enabled people on your team to speak to you as an equal?
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Who is Andy Vitale?
Andy is the Chief Design Officer of Constant Contact, an automation platform that helps small businesses to simplify and amplify their digital marketing. In this crucial role, Andy is responsible for providing executive leadership for the design organisation.
A master when it comes to scaling design teams, while at Rocket Companies Andy grew the design team into a multidisciplinary organisation with over 170 people working across design, research and brand.
Aside from his busy day job, Andy is also helping to shape the thinking of future user experience professionals, through his work as an adjunct professor for Kent State University’s Masters of Science in User Experience Design programme.
Andy is the co-host of the Surfacing Podcast where, alongside Lisa Welchman, he engages designers, technologists, and business leaders in inspiring conversations.
He is a member of the Fast Company Executive Board, an Adobe Education Leader, and - believe it or not - he still finds time to mentor designers on ADPList.
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Find Andy here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyvitale/Website: https://www.andyvitale.com/Medium: https://medium.com/@andyvitaleX: https://twitter.com/andyvitale
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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/
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Hosted by Brendan Jarvis:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/
Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Ben Sauer shares why designers need to be better presenters, how to keep stakeholders awake and engaged, and what to do when disaster inevitably strikes.
Highlights include:
Is how design is presented more important than the design itself?
How do you help stakeholders to relate more powerfully to design work?
What is the Goldilocks Zone and how can designer’s find it quickly?
Why can it be useful to show stakeholders design work bit-by-bit?
How do you deal with difficult people when presenting design work?
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Who is Ben Sauer?
Ben is an independent product and design strategist, coach, and trainer, helping companies to craft the vision for their products, and to inspire better internal processes and practices.
Drawing on over 20 years of experience, he has written and spoken about strategic storytelling, voice UI design, and how slowing down can help organisations to speed up. And his insights have been put to use at organisations such as NASA, Amazon and the BBC.
Ben’s most recent mission is helping designers to become more influential by becoming more confident communicators of their work. That’s why he’s recently published a book called “Death by Screens”, a practical how-to guide for presenting high stakes design work.
Before becoming an independent consultant, Ben worked at Babylon Health, where he was first a Director of Design and then a Director of Product. There, he led a large team of over 100 designers, clinicians, data scientists and engineers.
He has also been a Senior UX Designer at Clearleft, the world-renowned and perhaps first UX design consultancy in the United Kingdom.
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Find Ben here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bensauer/Website: https://bensauer.net/X: https://twitter.com/bensauer
Death By Screens: How to Present High-Stakes Digital Design Work and Live to Tell the Tale - https://bensauer.net/deathbyscreens/
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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/
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Hosted by Brendan Jarvis:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/
Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Aylin Uysal shares her story of leading enterprise design, the reality of being an exec and a parent, and how patience and perseverance have served her well.
Highlights include:
Why is it important to have a good grasp of the details as a senior design leader?
How do you know when you haven’t got the work-parent balance quite right?
What changed at Oracle to enable the culture to significantly support design?
How do you work across Oracle to ensure that users’ experience great design?
Why can’t business apps be as simple and delightful as consumer apps?
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Who is Aylin Uysal?
Currently the VP of User Experience for Cloud Applications at Oracle, Aylin is at the forefront of design at one of the tech industry's most established companies, helping its customers to see data in new ways, discover insights and unlock endless possibilities.
During over two decades at Oracle Aylin has held several senior leadership roles, serving previously as a Senior Director of User Experience, a Director of Applications User Experience, and as a Senior Manager of HCM User Experience.
Before her long-standing tenure at Oracle, Aylin was a valued member of the design team at SAP, where she was a lead designer. She also made her mark as a senior designer at Silicon Graphics, a legendary Silicon Valley icon.
Originally from Turkey, Aylin graduated from Middle East Technical University with a Bachelor's in Industrial Design. She further honed her craft, obtaining a Master of Fine Arts from San Francisco's Academy of Art University.
Aylin's influence is not just corporate; she's been celebrated as one of the top thirty influential Turkish-American women by Turk of Amerika, she is a board member of the TUSIAD Silicon Valley Network, and is credited on 8 US patents. 
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Find Aylin here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aylinuysal/X: https://twitter.com/aylinuysal
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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/
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Hosted by Brendan Jarvis:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/
Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Monal Chokshi shares the lessons learned from growing three UX research orgs, what makes research impact a reality, and reflects on the next step in her career.
Highlights include:
What do you wish you knew about management before becoming a manager?
What do researchers leaders need to do to increase their impact and influence?
Did you become a manager to have more influence on product decisions?
What do you look for in a company when deciding whether to apply for a job?
What is the right way to socialise and influence partners with insights? 
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Who is Monal Chokshi?
Until recently, Monal was a Senior Director and Head of Research & Insights at Dropbox, the company behind the cloud-based file storage and synchronisation service that helps over 700 million people, in over 180 countries, keep life organised.
At Dropbox, Monal led an organisation with researchers embedded in teams working across the company’s diverse range of products. As well as a centralised research team that contributed to Dropbox’s strategic direction through foundational research.
Before joining Dropbox, Monal was the Head of UX Research at Lyft. It was here that her visionary leadership enabled the discipline to grow from just her, to over 30 researchers, design strategists, and research operations specialists, working across all of the company’s products and services.
A generous contributor to the community, Monal has shared her insights at popular events, such as at UX Live’s UXR Conference, and on podcasts like the UX STRAT Podcast, Noam Segal’s UXR Conversations, and UserZoom’s UX Peditious.
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Find Monal here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monal/X: https://twitter.com/MonalChokshi
How to Succeed as a UXR Manager: https://youtu.be/JhjCOljQDHA
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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/
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Hosted by Brendan Jarvis:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/
Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Jakob Nielsen addresses some of the criticism he’s faced, calls on UXers to urgently adopt AI, and shares why he believes the commoditisation of UX is a good thing.
Highlights include:
Are you surprised by how much you’ve offended some people?
Why do UXers need a greater sense of urgency about adopting AI?
Were the hiring practices at your previous company elitist?
What is the state of UX today and where is the growth potential?
Will AI impede our ability to develop our professional judgement?
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Who is Jakob Nielsen, PhD?
Jakob is the founder of UX Tigers, the website and associated substack he uses to bring his 41 years of UX knowledge and experience to the world, in what he has described as a plainspoken, hard-hitting and not bowing to orthodoxy kind-of-way.
Before founding UX Tigers, Jakob was the co-founder and principal - for 25 years - of a rather well known UX consultancy, the Nielsen Norman Group.
His other notable roles include being a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems, and a member of the research staff at Bell Communications Research - one of the world’s top three HCI labs in the 1990s.
Jakob is known for many other things, among which are being the founder of the discount usability movement, the foundational 10 usability heuristics for user interface design, and the eponymously named Jakob’s Law of Internet User Experience. 
He is the holder of no less than 79 United States patents and the author of 8 books, including the best-selling “Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity”, “Usability Engineering”, and the pioneering “Hypertext and Hypermedia”.
In 2013, Jakob received the Lifetime Achievement Award for HCI Practice from ACM SIGCHI and in 2024 he was named a “Titan of Human Factors” by the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
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Find Jakob here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakobnielsenphd/Website: https://www.uxtigers.com/
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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/
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Hosted by Brendan Jarvis:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/
Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Justin Dauer shares how he conquered his ego to become a better designer, why he’s left executive design leadership, and how unfulfilled designers make bad products.
Highlights include:
Has digital visual design become a little bit boring?
Why is humility the most important trait for a designer?
What made you realise you were done with in-house design leadership?
Why is it unacceptable for design leaders to ‘coast’ in their careers?
How have you’ve been able to reach a high level of professional fulfilment?
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Who is Justin Dauer?
Justin is the Founder of Anomali by Design, a consultancy specialising in design strategy, product design, and engagement. Through Anomali, Justin helps organisations to develop their design leaders, so that they in turn foster healthier processes, methods, and cultures.
Before founding Anomali, Justin was the Vice President of Human-Centred Design and Development at bswift, a tech company owned by CVS Health, that transforms the way millions of employees perceive and engage with their benefits.
Justin also spent a number of years as Design Director of Nansen, a Swedish-American design firm. In this role, he established the Chicago office and managed a multi-disciplinary team of designers, front-end developers, and UX architects.
He is the author of two celebrated books on design. His first, the beautifully illustrated “Cultivating a Creative Culture” was published in 2017, with a second-edition released in 2020. His latest book, “In Fulfillment: The Designer’s Journey” was released is early 2022.
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Find Justin here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pseudoroom/Website: https://anomalibydesign.com/X: https://twitter.com/pseudoroom
Books:
In Fulfillment: The Designer’s Journey - https://www.in-fulfillment.com/
Createive Culture: Human-Centered Interaction Design & Inspiration -https://www.the-culturebook.com/
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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/