Rosenfeld Review Podcast The Rosenfeld Review Podcast (Rosenfeld Media)

Leah Buley and Joe Natoli have teamed up to make something great (check out the reviews on Amazon!) even greater. How? Well, considering that The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide was written more than a decade ago, it was time to revisit the content and make it even more relevant for today’s UX teams. After all, times have changed.

But the fundamental principles of the original book haven’t changed. They are as solid today as they were 11 years ago. What has changed is that the methods have been adapted for the speed of change in today’s businesses.

Joe says it best: “These methods are shorter. They're simpler. They’re more direct in a lot of ways, and they cut to the chase in a way that longer processes don’t. I've met plenty of senior people who are throwing up their hands and going, ‘We're doing all the things. Why isn't this working?’ And the truth is, they're kind of overworking and overthinking. Everything in this book is practical and direct and gets you from point A to B. I just don't think there's any better way to get there.”

What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- About Leah’s experience as a solo UX practitioner and the inspiration behind the first edition of UX Team of One
- How the UX field has changed over the past decade
- How the second edition aims to provide comprehensive yet practical UX methods that can be applied in various organizational settings
- About the shortcomings of UX boot camps and educational programs
- A perspective that balances UX advocacy with business objectives and the reality of corporate politics
- How to navigate and thrive in a UX career despite industry challenges, focusing on practical, adaptable methods and tools.

Quick Reference Guide:
0:46 - Introduction of Leah and Joe
1:33 - The User Experience Team of One, second edition
6:46 - Large or small team, Leah and Joe’s book is comprehensive without being overwhelming
8:58 - Righting wrongs
12:14 - What’s new in the second edition – striving to do more with less
15:58 - Break - plug for the Rosenverse
18:20 - The current shitstorm
21:39 - On speed
24:40 - On toolkits. Tools and methods are two different things.
28:16 - Who needs The User Experience Team of One?
30:45 - Leah and Joe’s gifts for the audience

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Act-Way-Being/dp/0593652886
Jakob Bro, jazz guitarist https://jakobbro.com/web/
Confessions of a Pricing Man by Hermann Simon https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Pricing-Man-Affects-Everything/dp/3319203991
Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe https://www.amazon.com/Bonfire-Vanities-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0312427573
The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide by Leah Buley and Joe Natoli https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/the-user-experience-team-of-one-second-edition/

Have you ever thought about the similarities between art and science? Or about how math is the language of the universe? No? Welcome to a perspective shift. Ultimately this episode is about making things better, not just different. But how we get there is through a thoughtful and entertaining discussion with the witty and philosophical Erin Weigel.

Erin Weigel wants us to make things better, not just different. But how do we get there?

Lou had a thoughtful and entertaining discussion with Erin, always witty and philosophical—and often funny as hell. Join them on a perspective-shifting conversation that bridges disciplines and challenges conventional thinking, all in the pursuit of genuine improvement.

Erin is the author of the recently published Design for Impact: Your Guide to Designing Effective Product Experiments. She brings a fresh, accessible, and humor-filled take on what may seem like a dry topic: experimentation. Erin digs into the role of experimentation in design, advocating for always defaulting to experiments even if they’re the quick and dirty kind.

Erin and Lou also cover the following:
- Wonky stuff like normal distributions, the central limit theorem, and what can be learned from outliers
- The power of experiments to unite multidisciplinary teams by getting away from opinions and finding the truth
- How professionals can use the principles of experimentation to navigate uncertainties and drive meaningful improvements
- Discerning the impact of changes made

What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- How Erin, with a fine arts background, became the principal designer at Booking.com and the Senior Group Product Design Manager at Deliveroo
- The fundamental similarities between art and science
- Why you should never skip the experimental phase
- How experimentation unites people across disciplines
- The difference between making things different and making them better

Quick Reference Guide:
0:32 - Introduction of Erin; similarities between art and science
4:05 - Barriers between art and science
5:58 - Statistics is fun!
12:37 - Defaulting to experimentation
18:06 - Break - 5 reasons to use the Rosenverse
20:36 - Experimentation as a uniting force
25:49 - Make things better, not just different
28:32 - Erin’s gift for listeners

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Design for Impact: Your Guide to Designing Effective Product Experiments by Erin Weigel: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/design-for-impact/
Ologies Podcast with Allie Ward: https://www.alieward.com/ologies
Rosenverse: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/rosenverse/
Factfulness: 10 Reasons We’re Wrong About the World and 10 Reasons Why Things are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling: https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things-Better/dp/1250107814

In the latest episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Lou sits down with old friend Peter van Dijck, author of Information Architecture for Designers: Structuring Websites for Business Success, one of the first books ever written on Information Architecture. Peter is now a partner of Simply Put, a Colombian company that builds and designs useful AI Agents—including the soon-to-launch Rosenbot!

Peter offers insight into the world of AI. Having been one of the first to speak about IA, it is fascinating to hear what he now has to say about AI. Join Lou and Peter as they take you through the journey where language itself is transforming from design to technology.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- An introduction to the Rosenbot, an AI bot that Peter’s company is developing for Rosenfeld Media
- Some basic vocabulary for speaking about AI and ML so you “don’t feel like an idiot”
- Mind-blowing truths about the potential of Generative AI’s language capabilities
- How writing has transformed from a design to a technology and learn what that means for how we interact with the data
- About the importance of highly curated information when training bots and the tricky balance that comes when you want to present less polished sources like unedited conversations
- The importance of the human side of things
- The biggest surprise that has come from working in the industry

Quick Reference Guide
[0:15] - Lou’s introduction of Peter Van Dijck
[3:00] - AI on a basic level
[4:59] - Generative AI’s language capabilities
[18:08] - How we interact with metadata and writing as a technology
[20:00] - How real-use cases make technology more exciting and instantaneous
[22:19] - Information about the new Designing With AI Conference
[23:33] - Some of the jargon around AI and IA
[24:16] - Introduction to Lou’s Chat Bot, the Rosen Bot
[24:39] - The importance of training bots on highly curated information
[28:34] - The tricky balance of curated and less polished content
[30:26] - The human side of things
[31:55] - Different interaction models
[37:58] - The biggest surprise working in the industry
[38:30] - A Gift For You

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Peter Van Dijck Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petervandijck/
Peter’s Company, Simply Put: https://www.getsimplyput.ai/
Information Architecture for Designers: Structuring Websites for Business Success https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YDJPPCM
The My Climate Journey Podcast: https://www.mcjcollective.com/media/podcast

In a time of massive layoffs across the tech industry, and with the inevitable advancement of AI, is it time for tech workers to organize — as in, unionize? I know, I know. You thought unions were for 1950’s factory workers. Not so. Ethan Marcotte, author of You Deserve a Tech Union (and coiner of the term “responsive web design”) thinks it’s high time for tech workers to protect themselves by coming together and deciding what’s most important to them as a collective.

Certainly, tech workers don’t face the same kind of potential life-threatening working conditions of industrial America, but they still deserve a seat at the table when important decisions about their work are being discussed. With issues related to equality, transparency, workplace harassment, and how AI is shifting roles and affecting how work gets done, there’s a lot to talk about.
Ethan will bring his perspective on tech workers and how they’re being impacted by AI to the upcoming Designing with AI virtual conference in June.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- What’s attractive about unionizing for tech workers of the 2020s
- What tech workers would change if they could
- About tech walkouts and unions that have already happened
- Helpful resources for starting conversations with coworkers
- The potential relationship among AI, reskilling, and worker unions

Quick Reference Guide:
0:20 - Introduction of Ethan
3:35 - How Ethan became interested in the idea of tech unions
6:04 - “Weren’t unions for the manufacturing industry in the 1950s?”
9:32 - The things tech workers would change if they could
11:14 - Conversations among employees – are they safe? Are they protected?
13:28 - On organizing for the greater good of humanity
17:11 - Plug for Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions by Harry Max
19:06 - How we should feel about AI
22:36 - AI, reskilling, and when workers don’t want to leave mundane tasks behind
31:08 - Employees “voting with their feet” is costly for organizations
33:24 - How future workers may organize as it relates to AI
36:30 - Ethan’s gift for listeners

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Designing with AI virtual conference, June 4-5, 2024 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/events/futures/
You Deserve a Tech Union by Ethan Markcotte https://www.amazon.com/Deserve-Tech-Union-Ethan-Marcotte/dp/1952616603
WorkerOrganizing.org https://workerorganizing.org/
Tech Workers Coalition https://techworkerscoalition.org/
TheFutureIsLikePie.com https://thefutureislikepie.com/

Dan Hill is the director of the Melbourne School of Design at the University of Melbourne, and author of Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary and Designing Missions. And he’s the opening speaker at the inaugural Designing with AI conference, where he’ll be presenting “Designing for the Infrastructures of Everyday Life”.

Like it or not, AI is a growing part of our infrastructure—not just the infrastructure of our phones, our computers, and the internet—but that of our physical world. It’s increasingly used to support the very fundamental systems that maintain our cities, hospitals, utilities, and educational systems. On some levels, this is cause for concern. After all, we’ve seen other implementations of AI (think riding-sharing services) that have not lived up to their promise but have instead aggravated some of the problems they sought to address.

Dan is a big-picture guy with an ability to draw principles from history and other sectors. He understands that utilizing AI is inevitable. The challenge is recognizing the interconnectedness of our various systems and working together to build infrastructures that truly create better life experiences for all.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- The many facets of infrastructures
- How AI is currently being used and how it might be used in the future to support our infrastructures
- Why ride-sharing is not exactly an AI model worth repeating
- Why the Japanese and Finnish models work well in those environments but aren’t necessarily transferable to more diverse cultures
- Why quality of life will only improve with a more holistic, integrated design approach

Quick Reference Guide
0:37 - Introduction of Dan
3:49 - AI as infrastructure
8:30 - How AI might be used to further support infrastructure systems
12:09 - Will the impact of AI actually make life better?
18:59 - Plug for Managing Priorities by Harry Max. Get 15% off!
20:15 - The metaphor of designing looking through a lens and technology’s impact on the material world
26:16 - Helpful models – the Japanese and Finnish cultures
31:52 - Dan’s gift to the audience

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary by Dan Hill https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Matter-Trojan-Horses-Vocabulary/dp/0992914639/
Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions by Harry Max https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/managing-priorities/
Designing with AI Conference, June 4-5 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/events/futures/
Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghosh https://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Ashes-Opiums-Hidden-Histories/dp/0374602921

Jodi Forlizzi has taken an unusual path to get where she is today. With an art degree from the University of Arts in Philadelphia, she began working as a technical illustrator at the University of Pennsylvania. Transitioning into UX design as the internet expanded, she pursued a Master's in Interaction Design at Carnegie Mellon University where she is now a professor. Jodi's work focuses on responsible AI and diversity in computer science. Her talk at the upcoming Designing with AI 2024 conference will explore the evolving role of AI in design processes and products.

Jodi distinguishes between "designing with AI" and "designing AI," arguing the importance of designers' involvement in the entire product development lifecycle. She highlights the challenges of AI innovation, such as data availability, value generation, customer adoption, and ethical considerations and emphasizes that designers have a place in all realms of AI development.

Jodi's interview offers a glimpse into the evolving landscape of AI-driven design and the pivotal role of designers in shaping its future. With a blend of historical context, personal anecdotes, and insights, she inspires designers of all stripes to embrace the challenges and opportunities presented by AI innovation.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- How Jodi went from a Master of Fine Arts degree to working on responsible AI at Carnegie Mellon
- Why designers are needed in all phases of AI development
- How careers morph as technologies develop and become obsolete
- Lessons from history and the “friendly vending machine”
- Why solving for “Drunk Island” problems is usually more helpful than chasing a loftier issue

Quick Reference Guide
0:25 - Introducing Jodi
2:59 - On boundaries around innovating with AI
6:40 – 4 reasons AI models fail
8:07 – The role of designers and the challenge of starting the design process from the middle of the double diamond
11:49 - The role of bridge builders
14:48 - The morphing of careers due to the emergence and prevalence of AI
17:19 - Commercial break - Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions by Harry Max
18:26 - AI as a design material
21:08 - Constraints and structure on AI as a design material
24:39 - Jodi’s gift for the audience

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions by Harry Max https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/managing-priorities/
Designing with AI 2024, June 4-5 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/events/futures/
Friendly vending machines https://nextnature.net/story/2010/friendly-vending-machine