Have you thought about your career lately? Chances are, you have - given the buzz around the record high voluntary resignation rates during this “Great Resignation.” In this episode, Sarah Doody, UX Researcher, Experience Designer, and Founder of the Career Strategy Lab, shares her thoughts on how UX professionals can design their ideal careers, whether they’re in the market for a new role or not.

NN/g Resources on UX Careers:

Interested in working with us? Apply to this posting by April 4th

UX professionals often find themselves saddled with the burden of convincing others to value UX work. David Glazier, Sr. Staff UX Lead of Digital Experience at Illumina tells his story about how effective communication helped him get buy-in with stakeholders and key decision-makers.

Read more about David Glazier on LinkedIn

Courses & Talks mentioned in this episode:

More articles, videos, and upcoming training can be found at www.nngroup.com

There is no question that user research has changed over the last two years, but how significant are those changes? The answer is complex, but User Interviews' Erin May (VP Growth & Marketing) and JH Forster (VP Product) demystify these trends and share their observations and hopes for the years to come.

Check out the Awkward Silences podcast by User Interviews

Erin May: Twitter (@erinhmay), LinkedIn

John-Henry (JH) Forster: Twitter (@jhforster), LinkedIn

User Interviews: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook

Related NN/g Articles & Videos:

Recruiting and Screening Candidate for User Research Studies (article)

Qualitative Research Study Guide (article)

Quantitative Research Study Guide (article)

Related 1-Hour Talks:

Remote Research Trends (1-Hour Talk)

How Inclusive Design Expands Business Value (1-Hour Talk)

Upcoming Training Events:

Virtual UX Conference January 8-21  (2 half-day format)

Qualitative Research Series April 4-8 (5-day training event)

User Interviews Links:

The State of User Research 2021 Report

User Research Field Guides

Recruit 3 research participants for free on UserInterviews.com

As design teams mature in size and scope, the importance of intentionally designing and systematizing processes, approaches, and tools becomes increasingly difficult to ignore. Kate Kaplan shares insights from her research studying design teams and offers tips for those seeking to initiate and lead DesignOps efforts as a way to make design more impactful at their organizations.

Learn more about Kate Kaplan on LinkedIn and nngroup.com

NN/g Resources Mentioned:

Other Links Mentioned:

A note on companies to follow, from Kate: "There are so many teams at different organizations publicly sharing and publishing their DesignOps journeys and experiments, and I think that willingness to share is amazing and points to the greater community being built around DesignOps. Some that come top of mind to follow are Salesforce, Cisco, IBM, AirBnB, Pinterest, Athena Health, Atlassian. Most of these companies have internal design blogs or medium channels where they share their approaches."

A two-part podcast episode discussing the implications of decentralized computing and mixed reality on the future of UX work.

Geoff's Website: geoffrobertson.me

1-Hour Talks discussed in the episode:

Related courses:

Upcoming online events:

Product visions can align a team and inspire a better future state. When visions stem from real user needs, the ideas that follow have the greatest potential for success. NN/g UX Specialist Anna Kaley discusses keeping users at the center of product development, and shares insights from next weeks' UX Vision and Strategy Series, presented alongside Chief Designer, Sarah Gibbons.

Read more about Anna Kaley (NN/g bio)

Referenced courses and training series:

Related (free) videos & articles:

To kick off Season 2, we're releasing a special edition episode, inspired by a tweet posted by @AllisonGrayce in Feb 2021, where she asks followers, "what's a #ux hill you regularly die on?" Host Therese Fessenden asks both NN/g team members and members of the UXC and UXMC community what issues, topics, and principles they fiercely stand by, and shares their answers.

Guests and submissions featured in the episode (in order):

Chris Callaghan (UXMC) - UX and Optimisation Director (Manchester, UK)

Kara Pernice - Sr. VP at Nielsen Norman Group

Mary Formanek (UXMC) - Senior User Experience + Product Lead Engineer (Arizona, US)

Ben Shih - UX Consultant and Product Designer (Stockholm, Sweden)

Rachel Krause - UX Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group

Anna Kaley - UX Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group

You can find also information about the upcoming UX Vision and Strategy Series with Anna Kaley and Sarah Gibbons here. 

One might think user research gets easier when there are more people available to do it; but managing research initiatives at scale can be a difficult task in itself. In this episode, Kara Pernice, Senior VP at NN/g shares her experience and insights about managing UX research operations.

Kara Pernice's Articles and Videos (NN/g bio) 

NN/g courses and articles referenced in this episode:

Research repository tools mentioned:

Other ResearchOps pioneers and communities:

...and if you were curious what research papers launched Kara into her UX career, here are two of them:

Advocating for UX work is hard. It's even harder when you're the only UX professional on your team. That said, there is still hope for one-person UX teams, and Garrett Goldfield shares his recommendations on how to make the most out of limited time and resources, and how to lead the charge in shifting corporate culture toward a more human-centered future.

Read more about Garrett Goldfield (NN/g bio)

Resources & courses cited in this episode:

To celebrate our first podcast milestone, we flipped the script. NN/g UX Specialist Rachel Krause guest-hosts this episode, and interviews host Therese Fessenden about the concept of "delight" in user experience: what it is, why the pursuit of delight can often be a short-sighted and misunderstood endeavor, and how a more holistic approach to interpreting and anticipating user needs can more reliably lead to an experience that delights beyond a single interaction.

Read more about the hosts: 

Free resources cited in this episode:

Other resources cited in this episode: