Metric - The User Experience Design Podcast

I want to share a few totally unrelated pieces of thinking that caught my eye. This will be a shorty but I think you’ll find it interesting. 1I am taken with this concept of exnovation, which is the counterbalance of innovation. To constantly make something new, you have to dismantle the old; to organize your team around iterating and innovating you need to systematize the dismantling. This is from a post on Medium by the Politics for Tomorrow, who - in the same spirit of championing failure with slogans like “fail cheaply” or “move fast and break things” - demonstrate the necessity of embracing the phasing-out of stuff by showing it as part of a larger system of innovation. They discovered that stabilizing the new is not enough to achieve systemic change. In order to embed innovation in an existing “regime” or status quo, non-sustainable technologies and the related systems, infrastructures and livelihoods around these technologies had to be phased out in a delib

When the market’s taken a spill, when your earned revenue is down then the easiest line-items to cut are those that involve external consultants. Should you? Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

Listen now (6min) | Let’s be clear, many folks have thrown-in. This question has loads of answers, and this writeup will likely not make it to the top of the search engines. So, what more is there to say? This: it’s not the answer that matters so much as is the philosophy that shapes it. Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

Gutenberg isn’t a breakthrough innovation that made WordPress better. It’s a disruptive innovation making WordPress more affordable and accessible. — Mark Uraine, “Disrupting WordPress”A couple weeks ago I read Mark Uraine’s writeup about the disruptive role Gutenberg — the new block-based editor (and system of editor-extensibility) — performs for WordPress, the open-source juggernaut powering a third of the web. It nails why the WordPress community has been so hyped (and it’s in a language I speak):Why would anyone want to change this? The short answer is expressed best in the quote, “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” Software must evolve or it becomes archaic and dies. This bring us to the concept of disruptive innovation, originally conceived by Clayton Christensen. Disruptive innovation describes the process when a more simplified product or service begins to take root in an industry and

Folks tend to disagree with me whenever I say that user experience design is morally gray: there is no inherent requirement to making user experiences people like and prefer to competing experiences that leave users — morally or ethically — better off. Ethical design is a qualifier.This is an important distinction and nuance to design work that is critical to accept if we intend to push best practice in a more deliberately ethical direction. It empowers individual designers, teams, companies, entire verticals, even disciplines to differentiate themselves by choosing to design ethically. Assuming that good user experience design work has good intentions is dangerous — and naive.This also means we must divorce the relationship by what we do (design to improve the user experience) from how we do it (ethically, or not). It means that to be ethical we must choose to be so at each step of the design process, at each touchpoint between conception and performance of a service.To frame ethical us

The “front end” is pretty nebulous. What makes a good front end developer? Its definitions, and so its answers, are all over the place. It’s not just the introduction of new front end frameworks that have changed how we talk about it, but in terms of the discipline of designing websites we have begun to think differently: in components, in services. We can see front end in flux in Ernie Hsiung’s “A fictitious, somewhat farcical conversation between me and the JavaScript programming language,” where Ernie as a front end developer — a successful front ender, look at his resume — imagines having an existential crisis because the front end changed while he was busy being a boss (a good one).Our understanding of the front end as a place no longer holds up to scrutiny. We cannot define it by a specific suite of tools, a kind of user expertise, or even that — if anything — front end development requires a browser.If we talk about the front end in terms of d

The two-week sprint is totally arbitrary. We adopt the convention without really questioning the wisdom, but by such dogma of what’s-good-for-the-gander bake someone else’s practice into our organizational infrastructure. The thinking is that two weeks is just about the right time to prototype, test, scrutinize, and deliver a feature. But, is it?All it took was David Grant raising that question as part of the Facebook Journalism Accelerator about this time last year for those of us at WhereBy.Us to concede the point and, within a week or two, consolidate to one-week sprints. Basecamp, just being Basecamp, shrugs the sprint convention all together, and just published a book that largely makes it clear we’re all just navel-gazing guppies trying to emulate other startups. Shape Up, that book ☝️, made me question what practical reason do we actually need backlogs, or sprints, which was a refreshing reality check. I admit I find doing away with the backlog compelling - but that’

We pitch this idea of operational user research as a means to scale and democratize user experience design practice across an organization. For decision makers already familiar with our user-centric-business gospel — reminder: aggregation theory demonstrates how the user experience is the differentiator for services that have no cost of distribution (because the internet is free); or: good UX is good business — but are concerned about costs, then all they need to hear is how a few tweaks to the workflow and a Google spreadsheet can get the wheels turning with little to no overhead.It’s easyish to imagine how making the tools to curate feedback you’re already intercepting (emails, reviews, comments on Facebook) easy to use will over time aggregate a robust catalog of that feedback, which decision makers can use to gut-check their ideas. That hot return on a small investment is why no-frills ResearchOps is hard to argue against. We often stop our evangelizing there.The long game is inter

In this episode of Metric: the UX Podcast,we talk about how we deal with signal overload and notification fatigue in our design work (and in life), and our strategies for staying sane in a super neurotic discipline. Follow Metric: the UX Podcast on Twitter @metricpodcast Follow Michael on Twitter @schoeyfield Follow Tim on Twitter @uxbear Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

In this episode of Metric: the UX Podcast, we investigate what ouija boards and World War 1 teach us about design solutions, that innovation lies in not immediately thinking that the problem can be solved by an app. Follow Metric: the UX Podcast on Twitter @metricpodcast Follow Michael on Twitter @schoeyfield Follow Tim on Twitter @uxbear   Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

In this episode of Metric, we talk about questions UXers should ask during job interviews, and what about that interview or organization are red flags. In the gloss, look for chatter about the origins of our usernames, how to pronounce "schoeyfield" (and how that's not my last name!), and a game recommendation for Ninja Theory's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Follow Metric: the UX Podcast on Twitter @metricpodcast Follow Michael on Twitter @schoeyfield Follow Tim on Twitter @uxbear Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

How do you get the experience you need -- or want -- to take that next step in your career? In this episode of Metric: the User Experience Podcast, Michael Schofield and Tim Broadwater try to define how they want to evolve their career - and how one goes about getting that experience if it's not an obvious step-up from the current job. This episode has been transcribed (!). You can find the transcription at metricpodcast.com. Follow Metric: the UX Podcast on Twitter @metricpodcast Follow Michael on Twitter @schoeyfield Follow Tim on Twitter @uxbear   Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

What can regional ground hogs teach us about UX design? In this episode of Metric, we talk about designing services and products that have a demonstrable need. Hear everything you ever wanted to know about about projects that never get off, the shelf of domain-name good intentions, that there are alternatives to Punxsutawney Phil. Tim Broadwater is @uxbear on Twitter Michael Schofield is @schoeyfield on Twitter Metric is @metricpodcast on Twitter.     Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

In this episode of Metric, we pick up where we left off in 65: Mazes and Monsters and hit the user archetypes known as whales, fish, and barnacles - the persona zoo! We start with a travelogue about visiting creepy Facebook in Menlo Park. Eventually we delve into jobs to be done and critique of personas. Follow Tim Broadwater on Twitter: @uxbear Follow Michael Schofield on Twitter: @schoeyfield Heck, follow Metric on Twitter: @metricpodcast Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

This episode of Metric is about tabletop game design and play testing. Enter the awkward ass world of Michael explaining to Tim his slack-based Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Hear Tim's crazy interesting foray into play testing and its cross-overs with user onboarding. In addition to the banter, we touch on: NUIs: natural user interfaces lessons learned by other industries about how games onboard users Tom Hanks in Mazes and Monsters Follow Michael Schofield on Twitter: @schoeyfield Follow Tim Broadwater on Twitter: @uxbear Support Metric on Patreon to get this and other episodes (and a lot of other stuff) early: patreon.com/michaelschofield Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

How do you title this episode? Tim Broadwater and Michael Schofield expertly tangent between fitness, gamification of health, tabletop games,   Follow Michael on Twitter: @schoeyfield Follow Tim on Twitter: @uxbear Support Metric on Patreon to get this and other episodes (and a lot of other stuff) early: patreon.com/michaelschofield Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

Jason Griffey on ethically designing a service to heatmap physical spaces that respects users' privacy - on open software, to boot.   Jason Griffey is a librarian, technologist, consultant, writer and speaker, an Affiliate Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University where he studies decentralization, access to information, intellectual property, and more.   A transcript of this show fully marked-up with links and the like will be available at at www.metricpodcast.com. Follow Michael on Twitter: @schoeyfield Support Metric on Patreon to get this and other episodes (and a lot of other stuff) early: patreon.com/michaelschofield Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

This episode of Metric: The User Experience Design Podcast is a no-guester: a shorty, but a goodie. It's about how to talk about service design and user experience design in the same sentence - which nobody can seem to figure out how to do coherently without writing a whole article! Also, I wrote a whole article. A transcript of this show fully marked-up with links and the like is at www.metricpodcast.com. Follow Michael on Twitter: @schoeyfield Support Metric on Patreon: patreon.com/michaelschofield Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

In this episode of Metric: The User Experience Podcast, Donna Lanclos - an unaplogetic anthropologist and folklorist - talks about the ethics of gathering personal data in the name of good UX, and how that's incredibly complicated to justify. We chat about learning analytics in universities, the concept of "UX Washing", and privacy as a social justice issue. A transcript of this show fully marked-up with links and the like will be found at www.metricpodcast.com in the next couple of days. Follow Michael on Twitter: @schoeyfield Support this podcast on Patreon: patreon.com/michaelschofield Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe

In this episode of Metric: The User Experience Podcast, I chat with friend-of-the-show Tim Broadwater, a UX Master Certificate recipient, about the value of User Experience Certification, or even that of a more traditional route through college. This covers everything across the diversification of UX roles, leadership and management, and -- of course -- Scream Queens. A transcript of this show fully marked-up with links and the like can be found at www.metricpodcast.com Follow Michael on Twitter: @schoeyfield Support this podcast on Patreon: patreon.com/michaelschofield Get full access to Metric by Michael Schofield at metricpodcast.com/subscribe