Brave UX with Brendan Jarvis 🇺🇦

Nick Fine, PhD - The Future of UX in an AI World

Today, our special guest is Nick Fine, PhD, Principal UX Research Consultant and Strategist at Adaptavist. Nick touches on several topics, including dealing with ADHD, why user-centric design has lost its way, and the impact of economic cycles and AI on the industry. Nick also talks about the need for UX researchers to focus on insight rather than ‘depth’, stating that the goal is to “get the gold and get out.” And that’s just the start!
Highlights include:
00:00 - Guest introduction
02:31 - Discussion on ADHD and "Chorus of Bastards"
09:15 - Nick's background in hacking and hyperfocus 
17:56 - Frustration with the current state of UX
23:50 - Future of UX and AI agents
30:31 - Making yourself indispensable in UX
35:16 - Over-intellectualization of UX research
39:31 - The role of managers and leaders in UX
44:11 - Conclusion and key takeaways
Who is Nick Fine, PhD
Nick is a user experience researcher and designer with 20 years of experience in digital and over 12 years of experience as a practitioner. He holds a PhD and MSc in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and a BSc in Psychology. He successfully defended his PhD thesis in 2009, entitled “Personalizing Interaction Using User Interface Skins,” where he established a novel means for determining personality type from keyboard and mouse usage and discovered relationships between design elements (color, shape, meaning) and personality type. 
By combining academic research skills and HCI knowledge with commercial UX experience, Nick has successfully delivered a number of complex and mission-critical projects, including air traffic control, financial systems, and pharmaceutical R&D. He has led UX on projects for a number of brands, including Coca-Cola, SAB Miller, Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley, EY, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, BT, Virgin Media, Camelot, and both the Home and Cabinet Office.
Find Nick Here:
Nick Fine, PhD on LinkedIn
Adaptavist Website
Proskin.org Website
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Q Walker - The Information Architecture of Emojis

Q Walker draws a line between circus and UX, shares their experience of being cyber stalked, and unpacks the IA intricacies of emojis.
Highlights include:
What can designers learn from circus performers?
Why did you start researching the information architecture of emojis?
Are changes to emojis a form of benevolent censorship?
What makes the presentation of the gun emoji interesting?
How has embracing your queerness helped you reclaim your bravery?
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Who is Q Walker?
Since late 2023, Q has been the General Manager of The Circus Hub, the centre for circus arts in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand.
Before joining The Circus Hub, Q was an Experience Lead at PaperKite , where they plied their trade of UX strategy and UX research to helping brands like the All Blacks, Volkswagen, The New Zealand Ministry of Health, and Hell Pizza, to better serve their customers.
Q’s career in design started in the United States at Fidelity Investments in 2012, where they worked as a Communications Design Manager and - among other things - used UX and graphic design skills to create data visualisations, interactive reports and web app interfaces.
It was during their time at Fidelity that Q both started and completed a Master of Science in Human Factors in Information Design at Bentley University. 
They have also shared their expertise and experiences with audiences at UX New Zealand (more than once) and UXPA’s Boston conference.
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Find Q here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/q-walker/
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Hosted by Brendan Jarvis:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/
Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/
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Greg Petroff - Practical Executive Design Leadership

Greg Petroff discusses the practicalities of executive design leadership, why he believes in ‘make to think’, and the ins-and-outs of working with product and engineering.
Highlights include:
How much advocacy for design is too much?
Why do you prefer project-based teams over product-based teams?
How do you align the engineering, product and design organisations?
How have your recent experiences in the labour market changed you?
What does effective compromise look like in enterprise software design?
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Who is Greg Petroff?
A 25 year veteran of the design field, for the past 10 years Greg has led significant design organisations at some of the world’s largest and most recognisable companies. 
Until recently, he was the vice president and chief design officer of Cisco Secure, where he led the design innovation and transformation of one of the world’s largest cybersecurity solutions providers.
His highlight reel also includes being the chief experience officer at GE Digital, managing director of Google Cloud, vice president and global head of design at ServiceNow, and senior vice president of design at Compass.
One of the early members of our emerging field, Greg is a founding board member of the Interaction Design Association, where he also contributed as the treasurer and as an early conference chair. 
A generous contributor to the field, Greg has shared his insights on stages across the world, including at TedX, the Interaction conference, UX Australia, Enterprise UX, and on the most-excellent Finding Our Way podcast.
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Find Greg here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gpetroff/ X: https://twitter.com/gpetroff
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Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content!
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Hosted by Brendan Jarvis:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/
Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/
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Ari Zelmanow, PhD - Becoming a More Influential Researcher

Ari Zelmanow shares insight into his life as a police detective, how he transformed into a PhD and then UX researcher, and how researchers can become strategic partners.
Highlights include:
What insight did your time as a detective give you into your fellow humans?
How do you communicate the value of research to the business?
What is the most impactful way to present research findings?
Why is it important to associate a level of certainty with research findings?
What is the most important thing for researchers to focus on right now?
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Who is Ari Zelmanow?
Ari is he Head of UX Research at Twilio, where he leads the ‘small but mighty’ research and research ops teams for the industry-leading platform that efficiently powers customer engagement, marketing and innovation.
He is also the Managing Director of Customer Forensics, where he helps companies to capture and keep more customers - informed by his time in the research field, and former life as a metropolitan police detective.
Ari has also held a number of senior research roles, including as vice president of analytics, research and insight at Gtmhub, As a UX research manager at Indeed, a director of analytics, research, and insights at Panasonic, and as a UX and Market Research Lead at Twitter.
Complementing Ari’s decade of experience as a police detective and years in the field as an applied researcher and research manager, he holds a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies, a Master of Science in Criminal Justice, and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology.
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Find Ari here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zelmanow/Personal website: https://arizelmanow.com/Customer Forensics: http://customerforensics.com/Blog: https://zelmanow.medium.com/X: https://twitter.com/arizelmanow
The Influential Researcher course:https://maven.com/interrogate/the-influential-researcher
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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).
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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/

Vidya Dinamani - The Rebel's Guide to Making Great Products

Vidya Dinamani shares important strategies for building belief, healthy product cultures, and positive cross-functional relationships. 
Highlights include:
How have you increased your chances of your initiatives being supported?
How do you determine what is needed for a product org to improve?
What do you do when a leader is preventing the product org’s success?
How do the best leaders manage the demands on their team’s time?
What advice do you have for teams being crushed by their backlog?
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Who is Vidya Dinamani?
Vidya is the co-founder of Product Rebels, a company that has provided world-class and hands-on product management coaching, by tenured product management executives, to over 1,200 product leaders and founders.
She is also a founding partner of Ad Astra Ventures, a specialist early-stage venture investment firm and accelerator that helps female founders to get funded.
Before founding Product Rebels, Vidya was the VP of Innovation and Design at Mitchell International, where she established and grew a team that was focused on new growth products and the development of an innovation framework, metrics and process.
Vidya also spent a little over a decade at Intuit, where her last role was as the Director of Product & Customer Experience Development for TurboTax.
She holds 9 US software patents. Is a member of both GroupSolver’s and Sash Group’s board of directors. A limited partner of the Neythri Futures Fund. A mentor for Techstars and GrowthMentor. And the founder and lead organiser of Product Tank San Diego.
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Find Vidya here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vdinamani/Website: https://vidyadinamani.mystrikingly.com/X: https://twitter.com/vdinamani
Product Rebels: https://productrebels.com/Ad Astra Ventures: http://www.adastra.ventures/ 
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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/

Suj Premachandran - Bringing the Power of UX Design to Children

Suj Premachandran shares how Digital Influx brings UX to children, how they integrate Eastern educational philosophy, and the challenge of changing archaic education systems.
Highlights include:
How are you helping children to become creative thinkers and designers?
Are some of Digital Influx’s practices too ‘foreign’ for UK educators?
How are you bringing design to people of colour through Digital Influx?
What inspiration have you taken from non-Western education systems?
Why do students create projects related to UN Sustainable Development Goals?
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Who is Suj Premachandran?
Suj is the CEO of Digital Influx, an international, industry-led, and interactive EdTech platform that helps children, teens and adults to develop UX design skills and to think differently about problems, large and small. 
Suj is also the Vice President of the recently established Digital Influx Foundation; a US based non-profit that aims to make design education accessible to all children, regardless of their socio-economic background.
Before founding Digital Influx, Suj worked in design recruitment as a senior talent partner for Revolut, one of the world’s first global super apps. And also as a creative talent consultant for product and UX people at Salt in London.
Suj is an advocate for design & UX education at Tech London Advocates, a network of more than 15,000 tech leaders, entrepreneurs and experts across the globe. He is also a member of the Design Leadership Forum.
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Find Suj here:
Website: https://digitalinflux.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suj-premachandran-b630b444/X: https://twitter.com/CEOinflux
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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/
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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/

Andy Vitale - Scaling Your Design Organisation

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).
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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 - Presenting High-Stakes Design Work

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!
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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 - Leading a Global Enterprise UX Design Org

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).
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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 - Growing Impactful UX Research Organisations

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!
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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/