What is UX?

Michaela Mucha is an award-winning designer, art director, & matcha-drinker currently making fun things (virtually!) at The Walt Disney Studios. Michaela is a first generation Mexican–Filipina–American with over a decade of experience in graphic design. She is a design nerd at heart, and is currently at The Walt Disney Studios where she delivers best-in-class advertising campaigns for theatrical record-breaking box office hits and Disney+ streaming movies and series from Pixar, Disney, and 20th Century Studios. She is a member of the original team that launched Disney+ in 2019.

Her clients and collaborators include: Disney, Starbucks, ABC, Pixar, Marvel—among others. She holds a B.A. in Graphic Design & Digital Imaging and is a board member of AIGA NY. Recently, she was awarded as a Semifinalist (twice!) in the Int’l Adobe Design Awards.

In this episode, we talked about:

• Michaela’s role in Walt Disney Studios
• MIchaela cited some design projects she worked on Walt Disney Studios
• How and why Michaela start in design?
• What makes a good movie poster?
• Tips for getting a job at your dream company
• What is a good design for Michaela?
• How did Michaela land a job at Disney?
• And MUCH MORE!

Links and Resources

Dispo app

https://workingnotworking.com/

Michaela on Behance

https://www.muchaela.design/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelamucha/ 

John Yesko is a veteran experience design, creative, and digital business leader; now Head of User Experience and Service Design at Walgreens. Responsible for the digital experience on Walgreens websites, consumer mobile apps, and in-store retail interfaces - as well as team member-facing digital. He also leads the Omni-Channel Service Design practice, with the mission of improving customer and employee experience across their ~9500 stores.

John's specialties include Information architecture, user experience design, service design, usability testing/user research, website design, interaction design, and creative direction.

In this episode, we talked about:

• What is Walgreens and how it serves people?
• John’s role in Walgreens
• Walgreens and Boots relationship
• How did John get into design?
• How did John get the job at Walgreens?
• John shared some knowledge to those aspiring UX designers in healthcare/pharmacy world
• What is a good design for John?
• More design tools that can be used for service design
• And MUCH MORE!!

Links and Resources:

http://www.yesko.com/ 

https://miro.com/ux-tool/

https://rosenfeldmedia.com/ 

Jared Spool books

https://hbr.org/ 

Jesse Gaskin serves as a Co-Program Director for the Design Leaders Council of The Conference Board. In addition to his work with The Conference Board, Jesse is a patient experience and human-centered design lead at Kaiser Permanente who specializes in using human-centered design to develop and launch new care experiences. His hybrid background in design thinking and business enables him to develop products and services that solve real customer needs while balancing organizational capabilities. He has worked with start-ups and Fortune 500 companies primarily in health care and financial services. Over the last 12 years, he has been involved in nearly every aspect of the design process, from pixel to platform, from designing mobile apps to identifying new product opportunities to launching new businesses. In his current role, he leads interdisciplinary teams in defining, designing, and delivering products and services that are desirable, feasible, and viable. He holds an MBA from the Stuart School of Business and a Master of Design from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, as well as a BFA in Graphic Design from San José State University in California.

In this episode, we talked about:

• Jesse’s role in Kaiser Permanente
• Strategic thinking for designers
• How Jesse started in design
• Jesse’s consulting business
• How did Jesse get into the healthcare industry?
• Jesse explains why designers are ideal to work in healthcare
• Jesse as the Program Director at Design Leaders Council
• And MUCH MORE!

Links and Resources

Discovery Design: Design Thinking for Healthcare Improvement

https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/front-door

https://www.conference-board.org/us/

Connect with Jesse

Jane Portman is a UI/UX consultant specializing in web application design, founder of UI Breakfast and Userlist. At Userlist, Jane's goal is to provide flawless onboarding and engagement for SaaS companies through a simple customer messaging platform.

Jane has also been running UI Breakfast Podcast since 2014.

In this episode, we talked about:

• How did Jane get into design?
• Software design and Saas Products
• Life as UI/UX consultant
• Productized Consulting
• Jane’s workflow and process in writing a book
• How to network?
• Podcasting to build a network 
• What is Userlist and what designers need to think about as entrepreneurs
• And MUCH MORE!

Links:

UI Breakfast Podcast

Better Done Than Perfect

https://userlist.com/ 

UI Audit by Jane Portman

Authority by Nathan Berry

Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick

Stacking the Bricks with Amy Hoy - https://stackingthebricks.com/ 

The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

USE PEK300 as a code to get $300 OFF - https://userlist.com/

Ana Lara is an award-winning app product and strategic designer with more than ten years of experience. She has worked with different clients such as Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Hilton. She was one of the earliest UX team members at T-Mobile, where she led and transformed one of their most important apps into an award-winning mobile experience. Later she transitioned to lead a team of strategists building omnichannel end-to-end customer journeys, seeking user-centric solutions to their pain points. Three months ago, she joined Cisco, leading a new app experience. She recently joined the ADP List community as an active mentor.

In this episode, we talked about:

• Ana's role at Cisco
• Industry awards
• Building a good team, dedication and research
• Career journey at T-mobile
• Internal award at T-mobile
• How to balance personal and professional life
• Empathy in the workplace
• How did Ana start in design and her design journey
• What qualities to look for when looking for a designer

Links:

Connect with Ana

https://www.cisco.com/ 

Book: Design Thinking Toolbox 

Jesse Showalter is a Fullstack Designer, Mentor, & Content Creator on a mission to help every creative make an impact on the world. 

Jesse has a Youtube Channel with over 200k+ subscribers and counting! The channel shares Digital Design & Web Development videos each week focusing on tools, techniques, projects, and more to help creative people make amazing things. If you're an aspiring Web Designer, UI Designer, or Front-End Developer who is interested in creating awesome things in pixels and code, make sure to subscribe for helpful training videos. 

In this episode, we talked about:

• Content creation, indie, freelancer and designer journey
• Handing off designs
• Helping creatives learn & grow
• Jesse’s tips for budding freelancers
• Jesse as a big advocate of self-learning and journey as a self-taught designer
• Dealing with clients as a freelancer
• Starting his Youtube channel
• There is no “overnight success”
• Jesse’s various streams of revenue
• And MUCH MORE!

Links and Resources:

Jesse Showalter Youtube

https://www.jesseshowalter.com/

Hey Creative Discord Server

Mike Heitzke is a perpetual hobbyist. Competitive powerlifter, three-pedal car enthusiast, tinkerer and watch collector. He served within the logistics space at CarMax as a Lead Product Designer.

In this episode, we talked about:

• MIke’s role at CarMax
• Design Operations and management
• Serving internal partners  CarMax
• Experience in managing designers
• The first failure in leadership
• Mental Health
• Life as a competitive powerlifter
• First design job from Craigslist

Links and Resources:

https://www.designbetter.co/designops-handbook

Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams

Daring Greatly

Brian Brown books

5 Love Languages

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

The five keys to a successful Google team

https://twitter.com/heitzke

Nico Li is a UX / Product Designer who has been around for a while. Currently, he is residing with the Zebra Technologies Innovation and Design team and spending quite some time incubating new digital solutions.

In this episode, we talked about:

• Nico Li’s role in Zebra Technologies
• What is Zebra Technologies and how it serves people
• Hardware and software solutions
• Zebra Technologies’ stage gating process
• Company’s general approach
• Alignment and design evangelism
• How Nico got into design
• And MUCH MORE!

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicoli/

www.zebra.com 

Liminal Thinking (book) http://liminalthinking.com/ https://amzn.to/3wTYHb2

Note: Currently, the design team (Zebra Technologies) is looking for UX Researcher and Designer in the US and UX Designer in India. Check out the job openings from Zebra on LinkedIn.

Morten Winther is a lead UX designer originally from Denmark but now in the Bay Area. He approaches design strategically and strives to ensure the future doesn't turn into a Sci-Fi dystopia. Morten's worked as a UX consultant and collaborated with organizations like Amazon, Absolut Vodka, and the Danish government, and he's currently shaping the future of mobility at Volkswagen Group Innovation.

In this episode, we talked about:

• Things to consider to become a sustainable lead design company
• Research and Development design
• Morten’s role in VW Group Innovation Center California
• Creating bold new ideas - sort of mobility and automotive for the Volkswagen, Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Bugatti and Porsche brands.
• Voice design
• Creative confidence & imposter syndrome
• Morten’s mentorship life at ADPlist
• What is a good design?
• And MUCH MORE!

Links and Resources:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mowinther/

https://mortenwinther.dk/

Best Interface is No Interface - https://amzn.to/3F19Idj

Erika Hall, Mule Design: https://muledesign.com/blog

Jamie Dihiansan is currently a Lead Designer at Basecamp primarily focused on the Android and iOS mobile apps for Basecamp (Project Management software) and HEY (Personal and Company Email service). He's been at Basecamp for over 13 years. He has 20+ years experience designing for the Web, including 7 years at Crate and Barrel building up their Internet Graphics department--designing and producing solutions for crateandbarrel.com and cb2.com. Prior to his work at Crate and Barrel he worked at Organic, an interactive agency, where he designed and developed online solutions for industry leaders such as Target and FTD.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Basecamp and Hey and 37signal’s origins
• Jamie’s role at Basecamp
• Jamie’s career and how he ended up at 37signals
• Differences between design in big vs small companies
• What do you do when you are the only designer at a company
• What to look for when looking for a designer
• And MUCH MORE!

Links:

Connect with Jamie

@asianmack

https://basecamp.com/