Understanding Users: a UX Podcast

34. The CEO creating tooling for rapid, continuous UX research at scale - Axel Thomson @ Ribbon

Axel Thomson is the CEO and Founder of Ribbon, a platform for rapid, continuous UX research that lets organisations do user interviews and in-product surveys in real time with customers, as they are actually using that organisation's website or apps.
In this episode, Axel and I chat about his career pivot from product manager to digital start-up founder, and how the challenges he faced as a product manager recruiting the right users to research with at pace and at scale led to the genesis of Ribbon. 
We discuss his views on the future of user research, the lessons he's learned as a founder, and the importance of resisting the urge to fill awkward silence when interviewing users...
Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees in the future. 
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 
 
Mike Green
 
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.
My thanks again to our sponsor Ribbon. If you'd like to learn more, visit their website or reach out to Axel directly. 
If you have a moment, I'd love to hear your feedback on the podcast to help me improve it. 
And finally, if you'd like to support the podcast in a very modest way yourself and help me continue to produce more of the kind of content you'd like to hear, buying me a virtual coffee would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!
 
 
 
 
 

33. The Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) Expert - Ihor Sokol @ Conversion Rate Store

What's the best way to run an A/B test? How can you increase your customer conversion rate through UX research? What is funnel performance analysis? 
"If you listen to your users they will tell you what they want and then you have to be creative in.....the experience that generates value for them. This is what customer centricity is in my view - generating value so that users are willing to continue their engagement with you and continue their interaction. So qualitative analytics and UX research is what makes CRO effective..."
Ihor Sokol is Co-Founder of Conversion Rate Store, a Ukraine-based Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) agency.
Ihor is a CRO/UXO pro who has been in the CRO/UXO field for almost a decade. He co-founded a performance-based CRO agency ConversionRate.Store, leading CRO projects for companies like Microsoft, Comodo, Ukrainian International Airlines, and Depositphotos. He is a regular speaker at marketing conferences, and a lecturer of UX, quant analytics, and A/B testing at CRO Academy.
 
In this episode, Ihor and I discuss the CRO and UX research strategies he and his team use to drive up customer conversion rates for their clients, the challenge of finding the right CRO experts to work with him and his team, and the ways to convince sometimes sceptical clients of the value of CRO. 
 
Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees in the future. 
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.
If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

32. The CyberAttack Survivor - Alex Race @ APM Terminals / Maersk Shipping

Alex Race is Head of Digital Customer Platforms at APM Terminals, part of Maersk group. 
Imagine that 3 months into a new role as Head of UX and Design within one of the world’s largest transportation and logistics companies your organisation gets attacked by international cyberterrorism. At a stroke, this takes out most of the company's IT infrastructure. The responsibility of rebuilding your digital customer channels in the aftermath falls to you.
What do you do? Where do you even start? 
This was the extraordinary personal and professional challenge that faced Alex Race in 2017.
In this episode, recorded after we met at UXDX 2022 in Dublin, he talks to me about the immediate after-effects of that cyberattack and how the organisation had to rebuild its digital capability pretty much from scratch. He also reflects on the unique career opportunities this presented him, allowing him to redirect their digital product strategy towards putting the user experience at the heart of everything they build.
Finally, he plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favourite technique and a trend he sees (or would like to see) in the future. 
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.
If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

31. How product teams can deliver maximum benefit to their users - Conversations @ UXDX 2022, Dublin - Part 2

In the second episode recorded in-person at UXDX 2022 in Dublin, I chat in depth with six conference attendees from a broad spectrum of organisations to get them to reflect on the event, and hear more about why they came and what they will take away from it. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities they face in their own companies, and consider what in their view the future holds for User Experience as a discipline. 
Within this short episode there isn’t time to cover all the great talks and sessions at UXDX 2022, but it will give you a flavour of what was on offer and what those who attended took away from the event.
Many thanks to my guests:
Vanessa Sauer from Booking.com
Mike Brown from Reed
Duaa Gettani from Square
Noah Levin from Figma
AJ King from Ocado
Ashley May from Trainline
Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.
If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

30.The Associate UX Director - Mihaela Dragici @ Volkswagen Digital Solutions - Conversations @ UXDX 2022, Dublin - Part 1

Mihaela Dragici is Associate Director at Volkswagen Digital Solutions. 
In this episode of Understanding Users, recorded in person at UXDX 2022 in Dublin, Mihaela and I discuss her work in an industry having to rapidly adapt to new challenges, and attempting to do that in an agile and digitally product-centric way.  
She reflects on why conferences like UXDX provide such a great opportunity to hear, exchange and learn from other organisations embarking on similar digital journeys, and we ruminate on the practical difficulties of conducting insightful user research in multiple languages across a large organisation with a global customer base...
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.
If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

29. The User Research Start-up Founder - Varun Murugesan @ Apple and Banana

"I always say [to my clients] let's research together. I've never seen impactful research done in a silo or in a vacuum...So I say let's face it together. I have multiple strategies to get stakeholders involved. The closer they get to that direct research process I have found, the more value everyone gets and the minute you get them into the process and that lightbulb goes off: 'Okay, why in the heck are we not talking to people? Why are we not already doing this as a regular part of our product DNA?', then the next time you want to do a study it's so much easier..."
 
Varun Murugesan is Cofounder and Head of Research at Apple and Banana and the author of Fruitful, a nifty new and growing online UX research library and toolkit of resources for researchers and UX teams. 
 
In this episode of Understanding Users, Varun discusses the important role quantitative research can play in product design. He shares his views on the potential pitfalls of UX bootcamps and he takes me through the birth of Fruitful, aimed at digital teams wanting to do better, faster and more effective research with their users. 
**There are 30 discount codes available to listeners of this podcast for the full suite of online Fruitful research guides and handbooks. Simply enter the discount code I mention in the intro to this episode to get 20% off when checking out! That's 20% off access to Fruitful for the first 30 people to redeem the code**
He also plays my 3 card challenge to share his favourite UX tool, favoured technique and a trend he sees in the future. 
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode.  
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.
If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   
 

28. How UX Design can solve the digital challenges of today - Leeds Digital Festival 2022 (Part 3 - The Agency)

"The biggest [takeaway from the event for me] without question is around accessibility....Obviously we're used to the term 'accessibility'...in terms of...the technical standards..., things like screen readers [they] might need to use. But actually, it can be all kinds of things. It can be an empathy for someone's mental health. It could be someone with RSI, and actually starting to understand what good design for everyone actually means. And that seems to be a big challenge for businesses at the moment."
Andrew Machin is Founder and Director of Lion+Mason. 
This is the third and final episode of a three part mini-series covering Lion+Mason's UX Seminar at the Leeds Digital Festival 2022 entitled: 'How User Experience Design can successfully solve the digital challenges of today'. 
In this episode I chat with Andrew about the genesis of Lion+Mason as a digital product and service design agency, his reflections on the event they hosted at the LDF22 and his thoughts more broadly on the direction and current state of user experience and product design disciplines.
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.
If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

27. Designing and building better digital public services - The SD in Gov Conference - Scotland, September 2022 (Part 3 - The Attendees)

"I love the fact that it's very much a peer-to-peer conference, that people are really transparent about sharing their learnings, their thoughts, and their experiences.... Everyone's incredibly friendly and open and really willing to engage and talk. It's a really nice place to 'temperature-check' what's going on [amongst] people who are delivering public sector services: what's on their mind, what are they thinking about..."
Reflections from an attendee at SD in Gov 2022.
 
In the third and final part of this mini-series covering the Service Design in Government conference held in Edinburgh in September 2022, I chat with some of the attendees to hear more about why they came, what they enjoyed and what they will take away from the sessions they attended and people they met. 
These conversations are with experienced UX practitioners and newbies alike, and even if you didn’t attend the event, I hope you’ll find something useful here to consider in your own work.
Within this short episode there isn’t time to cover all the fantastic talks and workshops, but it should give you a flavour of what was on offer and what those who attended took away from the event.
Many thanks to my guests:
Amanda Payne 
Jasmine Kendall
Tass Smith
Soh-Yon Park
Claudia Hopkins
Tom Morgan
Sadaf Uddin  
Hannah Whiteley
And thanks as well to Sarah Hill for editing this episode. 
Thanks for listening, and enjoy the episode.  
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.
If you'd like to help support the podcast, you can donate a very modest sum by buying me a virtual coffee. That would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!   

26. Designing and building better digital public services - The SD in Gov Conference - Scotland, September 2022 (Part 2 - The Keynotes)

"There's so much hard work we need to do just to keep on ploughing through the To-Do list of digital, like making more [public] services that work in better ways [and] fixing the data that sits underneath - we sometimes talk about 'fixing the plumbing' ....And that's essentially the plan for government for the next few years...But what I wanted to do is look further ahead, because I think... there's actually some more exciting things about how we take the the business models of the Internet era about how we relate to each other... in [a] social media way more horizontally than vertically; things like using platform approaches to think about the accessibility of government data and services to a wider community if we're interested in economic growth..." 
Paul Maltby, Chief Digital Officer at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Welcome to the second of this three-part mini-series, where I'm talking with the three inspiring keynote speakers at the in-person Service Design in Government (SD in Gov) conference held in Edinburgh in Scotland in September 2022.
I asked them to share their reflections on the conference, the challenges facing anyone involved in designing services in the public sector, and what they wanted attendees to take from their keynote addresses: 
Rebecca Kemp, Design Director at Future Foundry, speaks about her session entitled "User-centred design in public services - what now and what next?"
Shabira Papain, CEO of Democracy Club, shares her thoughts on the importance of inclusive design in public services in "Inclusive design: luxury or must have?"
Paul Maltby, Chief Digital Officer at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, reflects on his keynote entitled "Towards the next decade of digital public service reform"
 
My thanks to all my guests and to Sarah Hill for editing this episode.   
Coming soon is the third and final part of this mini-series, where I'll be talking with attendees and other speakers at the event to get their insights and diverse reflections. 
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

25. How UX Design can solve the digital challenges of today - Leeds Digital Festival 2022 (Part 2 - The Attendees)

"My takeout from today is that you really need to listen to your users and do your research, and do regular research and get testing.... Because it's been quite obvious and apparent to me today that if that doesn't happen and you *think* you know your audience and you *think* you know the product that your users need, big mistakes can happen...": A comment from one event attendee.This is the second of a three part mini-series of episodes about the recent Lion+Mason event at the Leeds Digital Festival 2022: 'How User Experience Design can successfully solve the digital challenges of today'. 
In this short episode we hear from a variety of attendees as they they reflect on what they learned from the sessions on the day and what relevant, practical tips they plan to take away to use in their own roles and organisations.
My thanks to all the attendees who agreed to share their thoughts, and to Milly Martin and Whitney Otchere from Lion+Mason for doing the recordings for me. 
Coming soon is the third and final part of the series, where I'll be talking with some of the Lion+Mason team about their plans for future events at next year's Leeds Digital Festival in 2023.  
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.