Brave UX with Brendan Jarvis 🇺🇦
Welcome to the Brave UX with Brendan Jarvis podcast, your go-to destination for exploring the intersection of UX research, design, and product. Do you share a passion for developing and launching products that deliver superior and ethical experiences? If so, join your host, Brendan Jarvis, as he talks to industry and thought leaders in UX, product management, and product design. Get inspired and informed, and challenge yourself to become a better leader and think outside the canvas, both in what you do and occasionally in who you are.
Episodes

Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
Wendy Johansson shares some of her leadership learnings, speaks frankly about the challenge of changing the status quo, and what she’s observed in the best designers.
Highlights include:
How do you balance your personal views with what’s best for your business?
What can people ask themselves if they’re not able to effect change at work?
Why is it important to focus changing the minds of the people in the middle?
What can we do when we're asked to do something we strongly disagree with?
Why is it important for us to speak up when we see injustices happening?
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Who is Wendy Johansson?
Wendy is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Experience Officer at MiSalud, a company that’s on a mission to provide affordable, culturally-authentic, physical and mental healthcare for the Latinx community in the USA and Mexico.
Before starting MiSalud, Wendy worked at Amazon, where she launched the inaugural UX Design and Research Apprenticeship Programme; a programme that provided a pathway to UX careers for people from underrepresented communities and non-traditional backgrounds.
Wendy has also been the Global Vice President of User Experience at Publicis Sapient, where she led a team of over 1,000 designers and partnered with then CXO, Dr. John Maeda, to transform a largely traditional agency into an experience-led consultancy.
Back in 2013, Wendy co-founded Wizeline, a global product development company where she was also VP of UX, managing a global team of over 75 designers, and VP of Academy, where she led the global expansion of Wizeline Academy.Â
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Find Wendy here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendyjohansson/Twitter: https://twitter.com/uxwendyWebsite: https://www.wendyjohansson.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/

Tuesday Sep 19, 2023
Tuesday Sep 19, 2023
Ronnie Battista shares why it’s important to be true to yourself, how designers can maintain their relevance, and what separates pretenders from innovators.
Highlights include:
How did you come to play in a British punk band?
Should more designers be taking on product management roles?
Is UX strategy as relevant today as it was five years ago?
What distinguishes those who innovate from those who don’t?
What is Shoshin and why should we embrace it, right now?
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Who is Ronnie Battista?
Ronnie is a Senior Director of Global Experience Design at Slalom, a global business and technology consulting company that helps organisations to dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all.
At Slalom, Ronnie leads a team that supports the strategic experience design efforts of the company’s 40+ offices across North America, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Germany.
Ronnie is also the Program Director and Adjunct Professor of the Master of Business and Science programme at Rutgers University, an institution that he has had a longstanding and deep commitment to.
Between 2010 and 2013, Ronnie served as Treasurer on the Board of Directors of the User Experience Professionals Association, or UXPA as it’s more commonly known.
An experienced strategic designer and design leader, Ronnie’s has shared his perspectives across the globe, most notably at UX STRAT, on the Thinking & Doing podcast, as a former columnist for UXmatters, and - of course - at Rutgers University.
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Find Ronnie here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronniebattista/Twitter: https://twitter.com/RonnieBattistaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_space_barn/Website: http://rutgersuxd.com/
The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater:https://a.co/d/1A8GpQy
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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/

Tuesday Sep 05, 2023
Tuesday Sep 05, 2023
Jon Fukuda illuminates the dark corners of enterprise DesignOps, reinforces the importance of connecting design to value, and shares what’s kept him consulting for nearly 20 years.
Highlights include:
What is the big lie of enterprises’ adoption of DesignOps?
Why has IT largely left Design to implement its own systems?
How do you frame the value of DesignOps to your customers?
What does it mean to be culturally ready to embrace DesignOps?
Are designers being laid off because their orgs. don’t value design?
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Who is Jon Fukuda?
Jon is the Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer of Limina, a professional design services firm that specialises in design operations and that’s on a mission to unleash human potential at the nexus of information, technology and people.
At Limina, Jon focuses on leading the company’s human-centred design practice, including aspects such as design strategy, design systems, and interaction design.
Jon’s contributions to advancing the field of design operations led to his recent appointment as the Curator for Rosenfeld Media’s 2022 DesignOps Summit, the premier annual conference for the discipline.
Before going full-time with Limina, Jon was the Director of User Experience at AddThis, where he was responsible for the website and product experience of what was one of the world’s most popular social sharing tools.Â
Jon has also generously shared his insights on platforms provided by organisations like NoVA UX, Rosenfeld Media, Friends of Figma and 24 Minutes of UX.Â
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Find Jon here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonfukuda/Twitter: https://twitter.com/jkoodaWebsite: http://www.limina.co/Podcast: https://limina.co/insights/the-limina-podcast/
The Design-Integration Report (2020) -Â https://limina.co/the-design-integration-report/
======
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/

Tuesday Aug 22, 2023
Tuesday Aug 22, 2023
Satyam Kantamneni shares how he articulates the value of design, why design is a profession and not a skill, and why there’s no such thing as a UX/UI designer.
Highlights include:
Why does the profession of design find itself in crisis?
What surprises you about design leaders’ understanding of business value?
What is the difference between design as a skill and design as a profession?
Why do you want to be in the pain killer and not vitamin business?
How do you encourage senior leaders to separate fact from assumption?
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Who is Satyam Kantamneni?
Satyam is the Managing Partner and Chief eXperience Officer at UXReactor, the fastest growing specialised UX design firm in the United States, where he leads a global team that helps large and complex B2B enterprises to become truly user-centred innovators.
Before co-founding UXReactor in 2015, Satyam was the managing director of user experience and design at Citrix. In his six years there, Satyam went from being the first designer, to growing and leading a UX and design team of over 50 people.
Satyam has also previously been a user experience manager at PayPal, where he managed a global team and was responsible for establishing the company’s India Design Centre, which grew to over 30 people by the time he left.
The author of “User Experience Design: A Practical Playbook to Fuel Business Growth”, published in 2022 by Wiley, Satyam is on a mission to raise the profile, depth of understanding and appreciation that business people have for design.
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Find Satyam here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kantamneni/Twitter: https://twitter.com/ksnprasadWebsite: https://uxreactor.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/

Tuesday Aug 08, 2023
Tuesday Aug 08, 2023
Irene Au shares some of the learnings from her stellar career, the early life experiences that have helped her to succeed, and the importance of sweating the right stuff.
Highlights include:
What role does the C-Suite play in a company’s ability to realise good design?
How did you navigate the strong points of view of founder executives?
What did you see in the designers you’ve hired that wasn’t in those you didn’t?
Why do design leaders need to carefully choose their stakeholders?
Why do you wish the job title UX Designer would disappear?
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Who is Irene Au?
Irene is a Design Partner at Khosla Ventures where she works with early-, mid- and late-stage startup CEOs to help them realise the value of design through better methods, practices, processes, leadership and talent.
Irene has been one of Silicon Valley’s most successful design executives and has played an important role in shaping and elevating design within several influential technology companies.
She was the VP of Design at Udacity, where she helped the leadership team to find product-market fit and to define the company’s strategy, vision, mission, and values. Irene also led the design and research efforts for the company’s first product offering.
Irene was also the Director of User Experience (Global Head) at Google for nearly 6 years. During her time there, Irene scaled and led the design team to over 350 people and transformed the way the famously engineering-driven company valued and operationalised design.
Her success at Google was in part enabled by her prior experience as VP of User Experience at Yahoo!, where for four years she was the design leader responsible for the company’s user experience across all of its products and design infrastructure efforts.
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Find Irene here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ireneau/Medium: https://medium.com/@ireneauTwitter: https://twitter.com/ireneauWebsite: https://ireneau.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/

Tuesday Jul 25, 2023
Tuesday Jul 25, 2023
Sara Wachter-Boettcher inspires us through her actions, reminds us why it’s important to see shades of grey, and helps us to design the careers we actually want.
Highlights include:
Is it career limiting to enforce a work/life boundary?
Do we have to accept that companies exist to serve shareholders?
Should we ever sacrifice our wellbeing to solve important problems?
Who or what inspired you to become a feminist leader?
Why are some people uncomfortable with life’s shades of grey?
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Who is Sara Wachter-Boettcher?
Sara is the CEO of Active Voice, a leadership development company that’s on a mission to make work culture better for everyone - in particular those of us working in design and tech.Â
Through Active Voice, Sara helps organisations - like LinkedIn, Etsy, and Mastercard - to build radical and courageous leadership practices, the kind needed for today’s world. She does this through 1-on-1 coaching, workshops and the facilitation of strategy sessions.
Before starting Active Voice in 2020, Sara was the Principal of Rare Union, a content strategy and user experience consultancy. Sara also ran a feminist leadership community and event series called Collective Strength, and hosted a podcast for feminists called Strong Feelings.Â
She is the author of three influential books, Content Everywhere: Strategy and Structure for Future-Ready Content, Design for Real Life, and Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech.
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Find Sara here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saraboettcher/Medium: https://medium.com/nice-work-from-active-voiceWebsite: https://www.sarawb.com/
======
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/

Tuesday Jul 11, 2023
Tuesday Jul 11, 2023
Alastair Simpson shares how rejection fuels progress, the role design has played in transforming Dropbox’s work culture, and how to build effective executive-level influence.Â
Highlights include:
What is the beauty of rejection?
Why don’t you like the phrase “getting a seat at the table”?
Why have you designed your VP of design role so broadly?
How have you supported people to find their feet with virtual-first?
Why do you find business conversations intriguing and empowering?
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Who is Alastair Simpson?
Alastair is the VP of Design at Dropbox, the one place to keep life organised and keep work moving. And it’s been keeping a lot of people doing just that, with over 700 million users, across 180 countries, and eight productivity-enhancing apps.
At Dropbox, Alastair leads a talented and diverse team that spans across brand, product design, writing, research, and operations. He is also working with other company leaders to apply human-centred design internally, designing the future of work for Dropbox’s employees.
Before joining Dropbox, Alastair was a Head of Design at Atlassian, where he helped to scale the design team from 20 people in 2014 to over 300 people in 2020. During his time, Alastair led the design of a number of products, including Trello, Jira, and Confluence.
As someone who believes that design leaders are business leaders, Alastair has generously shared the learnings from his ascent up Mount Business, speaking to fellow designers at events such as the DesignOps Summit, Bureau of Digital, and the Leading Design Conference.
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Find Alastair here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alastairsimpson/Medium: https://medium.com/@alanstairsWebsite: https://clunky.com.au/Twitter: https://twitter.com/alanstairs
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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/

Tuesday Jun 27, 2023
Tuesday Jun 27, 2023
Jeff Gothelf shares his experiences travelling with the circus, why humility is essential for innovation, and the role design plays in breaking through local maximums.
Highlights include:
Why did you join the circus after graduating college?
How do you help executives to embrace uncertainty?
What is keyhole decision making and why is it a problem?
What role should design play in breaking local maximums?
Why do leaders need strong opinions that they’re willing to change?
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Who is Jeff Gothelf?
Jeff is the Founder and Principal of of Gothelf.co, the company through which he provides independent coaching, training, and consulting that helps large organisations to create cultures of innovation, operate with agility and build better products.
He is the co-author of two influential books on modern product, “Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams”, and “Sense & Respond: How Successful Organisations Listen to Customers and Create New Products”.
And Jeff’s most recent book, published in 2020, “Forever Employable: How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You”, gives people the tools to design and develop fulfilling careers that are a continuous source of opportunity.
Before becoming self-employed, Jeff was a principal UI designer at AOL, a user experience manager at Webtrends, an associate director of interaction design at Publicis Modem, and a director of user experience at The Ladders.
Jeff is a generous contributor to the field. Alongside his books, he’s spoken at many conferences of note, including Mind the Product, USI, and TedX, and he has appeared as a guest on over 100 podcasts.
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Find Jeff here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gothelf/Website: https://jeffgothelf.com/Blog: https://jeffgothelf.com/blog/Twitter: https://twitter.com/jboogie
Jeff’s books:
Lean UX:Designing Great Products with Agile Teams -https://a.co/d/792MZQe
Sense & Respond:Â How Successful Organisations Listen to Customers and Create New Products -https://a.co/d/etS7R9K
Forever Employable:Â How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You -Â https://a.co/d/8Q0eILV
======
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/

Tuesday Jun 13, 2023
Tuesday Jun 13, 2023
Shelley Evenson unpacks the challenges of designing for corporate innovation, the dark-side of design thinking, and how AI may help and hinder us.
Highlights include:
Why shouldn’t big corporates try to emulate startups?
How is that we’re not designing experiences for people?
What reservations do you have about corporate design thinking?
How do we know if AI is providing us with accurate information?
What role does timing play in the success or failure of innovation?
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Who is Shelley Evenson?
Shelley is a Managing Director of Accenture Song, a global customer experience consulting group that brings together data science, design, technology and marketing to deliver transformative insights and scalable technical solutions.
Prior to Accenture Song, Shelley was the Group Director of Organisational Evolution at Fjord and she also worked as an Experience Researcher and Research Manager at Facebook, and as a Principal User Experience Design Manager at Microsoft.
Before Big Tech, Shelley was as an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Design, where she lectured in interaction design and built a closer relationship between industry and the schools of design, business, and HCI.
Shelley is a co-founder and former advisory board member of the Service Design Network, a global community of service design professionals.Â
She has served as the co-editor of Touchpoint, the Journal of Service Design, and is a contributor to several books and papers on service design, interaction design and design strategy.
In 2010 Shelley was recognised by ACAD as a Woman Innovator in Design.
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Find Shelley here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelley-evenson/
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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/

Tuesday May 30, 2023
Tuesday May 30, 2023
Laith Ulaby shares his colourful journey from academia to applied, how frameworks articulate and influence thinking, and the role of power in practice.
Highlights include:
What is reflexivity and how is it useful for researchers?
Should there be an independent body to oversee UX research?
Has the democratisation of UX research been a positive thing?
What are the dangers of using frameworks in shaping thinking?
How has seeing yourself as a facilitator transformed your practice?
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Who is Laith Ulaby?
Laith is the Director of Insights at Webflow, a platform where people can design, build, and launch powerful visual websites without any coding experience. In his role, Laith leads the organisation responsible for data science, user research and insights operations.
Before joining Weblow, Laith was the Director of User Research & Market Research at Udemy, an online learning platform with over 60 million users, across more than 190 countries. There he helped to develop the strategy for both the B2C and B2B business lines.Â
Laith has also held several other positions, including at Uber as a UX Research Manager, and as a User Experience Researcher at both Google and AnswerLab.
A generous spirit, Laith maintains his connection to the academic world by lecturing grad students at UC Berkley’s School of Information Science. He is also a volunteer mentor for UX Coffee Hours.
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Find Laith here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laith-ulaby/Medium: https://medium.com/@laith.ulaby
UXPA Code of Professional Conduct:https://uxpa.org/uxpa-code-of-professional-conduct/
Insights Association Code of Standards:https://www.insightsassociation.org/Resources/Code-of-Standards
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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/