UX is exploding! It's tremendously exciting. But much of the technology pushing the state-of-the-art has been around for over a decade. What are the key driving factors behind the rapid rise of new tools like Figma? What does this mean for the future of collaboration? How will this affect research practices?

Alfonso de la Nuez, Co-Founder, CVO & BoD Member at UserZoom, and Dana Bishop, VP, Strategic Research Partners at UserZoom, drop by to discuss the evolution of the UX and muse on Adobe's recent acquisition of Figma. They take Erin and JH along for a retrospective look at the past 30 years of UX, dig into industry trends, and explore the nuances of user research.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The reasons behind the rise of UX tools like Figma
• The nature of collaboration in UX design, research, and stakeholders
• How tools affect the way we approach projects
• An evolution of UX design and UX research

Highlights:

• [00:01:52] Why is Figma the “darling of the design world”?
• [00:06:37] Prototyping changing for two reasons: time and necessity
• [00:13:09] Alfonso puts things into historical perspective with an anecdote
• [00:17:28] Fundamental differences between UX design and UX research
• [00:24:38] Dana discusses one dramatic industry change
• [00:30:06] A CX story about an encounter DoorDash
• [00:36:46] What's the next big thing in UX research?

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• http://userinterviews.com/awkward
• https://www.figma.com
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/userzoom
• https://www.userzoom.com

About Our Guest

Alfonso de la Nuez is Co-Founder, CVO & BoD Member at UserZoom. He has over seventeen years of experience in various disciplines, including UX, digital marketing, eCommerce, web design, and user-centered design. He is also the author of The Digital Experience Company, co-founder and former CEO of Xperience Consulting, and former co-founder and CEO of Xperience Consulting.

Dana Bishop, VP and Strategic Research Partner at UserZoom, has over twenty years of experience in UX research. After spending nine years at Keynote Systems, Dana worked at Key Lime Interactive until she joined UserZoom in 2017. Her work in UX research is primarily focused on competitive research and benchmarking. Currently, she is co-host of UXpeditious, a weekly podcast exploring the world of UX.