Understanding Users: The UX Podcast

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.
 
 
 
 

24. How UX Design can solve the digital challenges of today - Leeds Digital Festival 2022 (Part 1 - The Speakers)

Understanding Users is at the Leeds Digital Festival 2022!
Returning for its 7th year, the festival is an open, collaborative celebration of digital culture in all its forms and hosts a two-week line-up of world class tech content in September to showcase the city’s dynamic and growing digital sector.
In this short episode I'm talking to the speakers at an event entitled: 'How User Experience Design can successfully solve the digital challenges of today', taking place on 26 September. This free event is jointly hosted by local digital design agency Lion+Mason and Leeds Building Society, with leading specialists and peers discussing some of the key digital challenges facing businesses.
I chat with the speakers about what they will be covering in their talks and what relevant, practical tips they hope attendees can take away to use in their own organisations.
The speakers are:
Andy Curry, UX Director at Lion+Mason
Kelly Moran, Head of UX at Leeds Building Society 
Imran Afzal, UX Design Leader at Co-op
Paul Cook, Principal Consultant at Lion+Mason
If you wish to attend, you can register here. 
 
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

23. Designing and building better digital public services - The SD in Gov Conference - Scotland, September 2022 (Part 1 - The Conference Chair)

Sophie Dennis is the conference programme chair of the SD in Gov (Service Design in Government) conference, held in Edinburgh, Scotland in September 2022. 
The conference is aimed at participants who manage, design or develop central and local government services, health and education services, emergency sector services, civic technologies and others including Government employees, consultants and design agencies.
In this episode Sophie and I chat about this year's conference, returning in-person again after running remotely in 2021 due to the pandemic. We discuss the inspiring keynote speakers, and the varied programme of engaging live sessions, interactive group sessions, and speaker Q&A - plus an all-important hallway track where attendees can meet and share experiences with fellow practitioners.
This is the first of three episodes featuring SD in Gov 2022. Join me again soon for Part Two when I'll be in-person at the conference, chatting to attendees and capturing their thoughts and reflections on what they've learned and how that can benefit them in their roles.
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.
 
 

22. The Reunion - Lessons learned from doing UX the right (and wrong) way

I'm really excited to share this - it's something I've been wanting to do for ages!
In this episode of Understanding Users, I speak with four friends and fellow freelance digital folks, and who I've had the great privilege of working with. 
We reflect as a group on an (unnamed) large-scale UK government digital transformation project that we all worked on: what we did, how (and why) we did it, the challenges we faced and what we learned along the way. 
To what extent is an organisation ready to hear - and then act upon - problematic and challenging feedback from users of its services? How do you change long-established and deep-rooted processes within an organisation? Why are collaborative design workshops so powerful to the UX process? What can happen if you don't fully bring senior stakeholders with you on the journey? And why is the UK government's GDS assessment process so important in guiding teams to build digital services the right way?
My wonderful, highly experienced guests are:
Laura Cusack - Delivery Manager
Jon Sykes - Service Designer and UX Strategist
Ben Watson - Interaction Designer
Louisa Harper - Content Designer 
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!   
 

21. The Games User Researcher - Steve Bromley

Steve Bromley is a games user researcher. 
In this episode of Understanding Users, Steve talks of the fascinating and ‘unique production environment’’ of video games, along with varying UX maturity levels within the games industry, and the implications both of these have on how games user research is planned and carried out.
He discusses the importance of being able to conduct both generative and evaluative research during games development and the challenge, familiar to many UX teams, of ensuring that user insights are properly acknowledged and taken onboard by product teams in their product roadmaps.  
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. 
Read more about this work here and here.
Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the episode. 
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.

20. The UX Research Lead - Tim Dixon @ Atlassian

In this episode of Understanding Users, I have the pleasure of chatting to another international guest, this time based in Sydney, Australia.
Tim tells me about his career journey into UX from academia via experimental psychology and social and economic research, and he shares his views on the differences between strategic and tactical research approaches. He also discusses an unexpected - but beneficial - consequence of COVID-19 in allowing his organisation to rethink some of its UX team structure and working practices, and we chat about UX as a discipline in Australia.  
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!   

19. I’d love to hear your feedback on Understanding Users!

Thanks for listening to this podcast. 
This time, I'd like to do something a little different - and reach out to you the listeners for your thoughts and feedback!
The show has been running since October 2021 and, in the spirit of practising what I preach as a User Researcher, I'd love to get your opinions and feedback on what you like, and don't like, about it - and how I can improve it :) 
If you're happy to provide your feedback, please fill in and submit this short survey:
https://forms.gle/dndWts7zMc6K7kJF8 
Feel free to be honest as you like.
It should take you no more than a few minutes. All answers are anonymous and will not be shared with, or accessible to, anyone other than myself. Many thanks in advance for your time and comments. 
And do keep listening for more candid and revealing interviews with seasoned UX professionals coming soon!
Mike Green
This podcast is brought to you by Researchable UX.