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The UX/AI Coop is a response to the rapid introduction of AI into the world of User Experience. It is similar to the UXPA or IXDA, but with the major difference being an invitation for developers, data scientists, and product managers to create a larger community. It’s a true cooperative in that we need everyone to contribute to form an open-source marketplace.

The UX/AI Cooperative being launched by Kevin Schumacher, Jonathan Kempf, and a few others who share the same vision and understand the same world need.

“Over the last couple of years there’s been a universal shift happening in the world of design, and most UX practitioners were too busy building prototypes and design systems in Figma to realize it was bleeding into our world. 

There’s a lot of work to do to build a non-profit organization, but we already have many people interested in helping build our initial infrastructure.” – Co-founder, Kevin Schumacher

AI is just raw power and potential right now, but that potentials too tempting and too enabling, because it lacks any real control or rules. From our community comes the only practitioners of a craft that focuses entirely on how technology affects human beings, and keeps their humanity sacrosanct.  Being sensitive to human empathy couldn’t possibly be more important than it is at this moment. It’s a moment of reckoning for us. – UX/UI Cooperative

NOTE: As the podcast grows, I’m also looking for sponsors who believe in thoughtful design, emerging tech, and meaningful conversations. If that sounds like you or your brand, let’s talk!

Available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTqZm2t3hok

We are discussing the evolving landscape of AI in UX research, emphasizing the importance of adapting to new tools and methodologies. John Whalen, PhD, is propelling professionals and businesses into the future through the potential of AI to streamline research processes, reducing a seven-week study to seven days.

We share insights from his course, which covered prompt engineering, AI-moderated interviews, and Agents (synthetic users). He notes the skepticism among researchers but stressed the benefits of AI in scaling and cost-saving. John also addresses ethical considerations and the need for researchers to embrace AI while maintaining a real human connection. We are excited about the potential for multi-agent systems and discuss the importance of security in AI tools.

John’s courses empower professionals and businesses to:

As the podcast grows, I’m also on the lookout for sponsors who believe in thoughtful design, emerging tech, and meaningful conversations. If that sounds like you or your brand, let’s talk!

In this quick (and slightly selfish) update, I’m excited to share that I’ll be publishing episodes more frequently. I’m also announcing some amazing upcoming guests, you won’t want to miss what they have to share.

As the podcast grows, I’m also on the lookout for sponsors who believe in thoughtful design, emerging tech, and meaningful conversations. If that sounds like you or your brand, let’s talk!

Jeremy Miller is a well-respected veteran Design leader many know from the popular podcast “Beyond UX Design”. He is continuously empowering UX professionals with the soft skills that make them more effective. In this episode we are discussing his book Beyond UX Design – Master Your Craft Beyond Pixels & Prototypes.

Jeremy’s impact on individuals, organizations, and field of UX more broadly is increasingly impactful. He continues to inspire and educate through his podcast, consultancy work, and mentorship. This book is essential for all UX designers because, like Jeremy says, “you can’t build great software without great relationships.” In each chapter, experts also shared meaningful, real-world perspectives and valuable insights.

Gift this book to every member of your team and join the conversation we recorded about the book.

Join my conversation with web accessibility leader Natalie MacLees! Natalie has been working in web development and digital accessibility, for over 20 years. She is the co-founder and COO of a small software company NSquared focused on building accessible, user-friendly tools for small businesses. 

Throughout her career, she has remained a passionate advocate for accessibility and has made it her mission to train developers and designers to incorporate accessibility practices into their work.

You should know that with Natalie’s resources at AAArdvark for Accessibility, teams get a full accessibility platform that helps make auditing easier and faster while still maintaining high-quality work. AAArdvark does not offer a misleading quick-fix overlay, but rather offers tools for designers, developers, and accessibility professionals to quickly and easily identify, track, and fix accessibility issues on websites.

In this episode, we continue a critical conversation about the challenges we face together on computer science, ethics, and unintentional consequences with emerging technologies that lack defined purpose and regulations.

Morten Rand-Hendriksen has published countless valuable courses on LinkedIn Learning reaching hundreds of thousands of viewers from all over the world. He also contributes to the web community as a public speaker, author, educator, developer, and design philosopher.

I am talking with Jessica Ivins about strengthening stakeholder relationships via UX research operations in this episode. Jessica is the Lead UX Researcher at The Predictive Index, overseeing research and research operations. She plans, conducts, and synthesizes strategic UX research projects that provide critical insights for organizational stakeholders. We’ve got some actionable professional strategies and resources to share too.

Thanks to Vitaly Friedman for the following useful links:

In this episode, I am joined by special guest, Jared Spool! We are talking about transformational UX research and design strategies. We cover a lot of actionable insights and share a few laughs too. You will learn about how to evaluate the readiness and urgency required to make a maximum strategic UX impact within organizations, what actual leadership means, and how to improve future experiences with research-led, human-centric practices and more.

If you and your design/product teams need weekly motivation and resources, join the Leaders of Awesomeness community or sign the team up for a deeper intensive. Lift up your career and your organization with an amazing knowledge base and uniquely thoughtful teacher, Jared Spool.

Hey, everybody, it’s Cathi Bosco from rethink.fm the forward-thinking podcast about experience design. Join me and special guests to discuss effective design, technology, and the intersection of helping people and entrepreneurship. From user experience research to product roadmaps. We’ve got you covered. The big news today is that I will officially be taking over the rethink.fm podcast, founded by Jackie D’Elia and then co-hosted by Jackie, Monique Dubbelman, and myself. Moving forward, I will be conducting one-on-one interviews with experienced professionals to gain insights into their practices, their projects, and their teams. Let’s face it, design is a team sport, technology and user needs are continuously evolving and we can learn a lot from each other’s experiences along the way. Since this episode is a transition episode each of us will answer a few questions and at the end of the podcast, I’ll give some definitive insights into where we’re headed moving forward. I hope you’ll enjoy this episode. Thank you for joining. What does UX mean to you today, compared to early in your career?

It’s been a while, but in this episode, we have a guest! And what a guest: Rian Rietveld, accessibility specialist at Level Level is joining us to talk about accessibility. We talk about the problem with accessibility overlays, educating people, and how we can help more people develop, design, and create content in a way it’s accessible for everyone. Big take away: make it about themselves.