In the latest episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Lou sits down with social scientist Tricia Wang, coiner of the term “thick data,” and formerly a partner at Sudden Compass. Tricia is passionate about research and AI. She envisions massively improved research outcomes and opportunities for researchers, but only if researchers take the lead in incorpor…

In the latest episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Lou sits down with Neil Barrie, the co-founder and CEO of TwentyFirstCenturyBrand, to delve into the intriguing intersection of brand building, culture, and user experience research. Neil, an outsider in the realm of user research, brings a fresh perspective from the world of brand research; you can he…

Author, researcher, speaker, and frequent Rosenfeld Review guest Steve Portigal joins Lou for a chat on the state of the user research industry – where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re headed. If the field of research was once a lonely desert, today it’s a jungle. It was once a field where researchers could get lost and forgotten. Today, t…

By The Rosenfeld Review Podcast (Rosenfeld Media)

Harry Max is an executive coach, consultant, and hands-on product design and development leader. He’s also the author of the forthcoming Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions.For individuals, teams, and organizations, from managing things, people, places, rules, activities, and projects, Harry’s new book Managin…

Jorge Arango is an Information architect, author, and educator, and he’s written a new book, Duly Noted, about the age-old practice of notetaking. If you’re like me, you’ve been taking notes since your school days. Back then, we used notebooks, a Trapper Keeper, and sticky notes – anything that could help us ace a test, remember important tidbits, …

Have you ever felt like the product people want to move too fast? You realize that speed is important, but the quality of the product is going to suffer and the results are going to disappoint.Or have you ever wished you had a seat at the table during the initial strategy sessions of a new project, rather than being brought in mid-stream?Do you fee…

Today’s interview is just a taste of what you’ll learn at Rosenfeld’s upcoming Design in Product conference—featuring John Cutler’s closing keynote. John is the senior director of product management at Toast, a doodler, a former band member, a UX researcher, and business analyst. He’s also the prolific writer behind “The Beautiful Mess, a Substack …

While we’ve been developing design systems for years, we’re only just now learning how to create systems that are successful and sustainable. Dan Mall is the author of the soon-to-be released Design That Scales: Creating a Sustainable Design System Practice, which explores the cultural elements that contribute to sustainable design systems. Not sur…

Believe it or not, Steve Portigal’s UX research classic Interviewing Users came out ten years ago, back in 2013. A few things about user research have changed since then, to put it mildly, so we at Rosenfeld did two things: we convinced Steve to write a second edition (coming out October 17), and to join us on the Rosenfeld Review to discuss all th…

Sahibzada Mayed and Lauren Lin will be speakers at the upcoming DesignOps Summit on October 2-4, 2023. Their talk, “Cultivating Design Ecologies of Care, Community, and Collaboration,” will showcase the intersection of care-centeredness and design operations. Lauren has wanted to be a designer since she was in third grade. What kind of designer? An…

Zariah Cameron is Co-Director of Community + Research and the founder of AEI – Advocate, Educate, Innovate Black Design. She will be a speaker at October’s DesignOps Summit on streamlining an inclusive design practice. Many companies and corporations have good intentions when it comes to inclusive design. But too often that’s where things both star…

Jay Bustamante has always been about conserving time and resources by building tight processes to create efficiencies in his life and work. In all the jobs and positions he’s held, he would notice gaps, consult with stakeholders, find solutions, and fill those gaps. Eventually he learned there is a name for this type of work: DesignOps. Today Jay i…

Jenae Cohn is executive director at the Center for Teaching and Learning at UC Berkeley and, along with Michael Greer, author of the new book Design for Learning: User Experience in Online Teaching and Learning. Jenae and Michael’s book helps designers create compelling educational content. Think of it as required reading for anyone designing an on…

Not too long ago, Donna Lichaw, author of The User’s Journey, was helping companies solve product problems by organizing the experience of a product or service into a narrative arc where the user is the hero. Then she ran into a question that she couldn’t shake — a question that, once answered, would morph her business from product development to l…

Boon Yew Chew is senior principal UX designer at Elsevier and an IxDA local leader and board alumn. He will be a speaker at the upcoming 2023 Enterprise UX Conference on June 6th and 7th, delivering a session on “Making Sense of Systems – and Using Systems to Make Sense of the Enterprise.”Systems thinking can seem abstract and theoretical, but Boon…

Ren Pope has a passion for all things data, information, and knowledge, and he strives to make them more accessible, organized, and enduring. You may be surprised that this conversation about information architecture takes us back to classic Greek philosophy, specifically ontology, which is concerned with the nature of being—that is, what is real a…

Erica Jorgensen is one of Rosenfeld Media’s newest authors with the publication of her book, Strategic Content Design: Tools and Research Techniques for Better UX. ( https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/strategic-content-design/ ) With a background in journalism, her book draws on her experiences as a content designer with the likes of Chewy, Microsoft…

Lisanne Norman entered the tech field as a UX researcher in 2015 and quickly advanced to lead researcher at Dell, then Visa. She founded Black UX Austin and was the UX lead researcher at Gusto. And then she left in 2022. Because she had had enough. And because she wanted to make a difference. She is now co-director of DEI at the Hotchkiss School in…

Jill has been listening to customers and clients for over 20 years. She has worked for organizations like Etsy and Blue Apron, and has since started Field Notes Consulting, a research and strategic planning practice serving both public and private sectors. She is method-agnostic, harnesses full-stack research, and interrogates all data to get to th…

Prayag Narula is the founder and CEO of Marvin, a tool for qualitative researchers. Prayag will also be a speaker at the Advancing Research Conference where he’ll share the stage with Rida Qadri, a research scientist at Google. Humans have been doing quantitative research for thousands of years – well, for as long as math has been around. Qualitati…

Sheryl is the author of the soon-to-be-released Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/systems-thinking-for-designers/ With a background in journalism and political science, and having worked at or with Adaptive Path, Substantial, Frog, Ikea, Microsoft, and the Gates Foundation, Sheryl has an interest in …

Authors Maria Giudice & Christopher Ireland join Lou to discuss their new book, Changemakers: How Leaders Can Design Change in an Insanely Complex World, which comes out on January 17.Get a taste of what they cover in the book, from systems thinking to navigating change, and how to look broadly at patterns to understand the context in which you are…

Lou has Rich Mironov, CEO of Mironov Consulting, as his guest. Rich runs a blog and has been writing for over 20 years about business and the psychology that goes into product management. Together, they discuss ways that Product Management and UX can work more fluidly together. They dive into how you can bring your team together so everyone is work…

Lou sits down with Catt Small, Director of Product Design at All Turtles, who will be speaking at the Design in Product Conference on December 6, 2022. They discuss how designers and product managers can learn each other’s lingo and build relationships that will make both their jobs easier. Together, they sort through different workplace scenarios …

Lou talks with Whitney Hess as she discusses her vast career in UX design and transition into coaching. She breaks down the different methodologies and philosophies she utilizes with each client and how she embodies her work beyond her coaching. Together, Whitney and Lou discuss the different risks and leaps of faith she has had to take during her …

Lou sits down with Kara Kane, one of the curators of the Civic Design Conference, to discuss her role in the public sector and how that’s changed over the years. They preview the narrative she and her team have put together for the conference as well as discuss the challenges and victories she has faced through her career that have left her with he…

Lou sits down with Christian Crumlish, a product and UX leadership consultant at Design in Product, where he also hosts a product/UX community. Together they discuss the challenges that Design and Product traditionally have faced. They explore the intersection of these two functions and the need for a long overdue conversation: how Design and Produ…

Lou sits down with co-founder and executive director of the Public Policy Lab, Chelsea Mauldin. She gives us a preview of the talk she will be giving at the upcoming Civic Design Conference, Nov. 16 - 18th. They dive deeper into the intersection of design in the public sector and how that can look when dealing with all levels of government policy. …

Lou sits down with Alex Schmidt, author of our new title Deliberate Intervention: Using Policy and Design to Navigate the Harms of New Technology. Together, they give us a rundown of the many harms modern technology has brought to society and how designers are attempting to work with policymakers to tackle these issues. Lou and Alex also discuss pr…

Ahead of the 2022 DesignOps Summit, Lou speaks with guest Jon Fukuda, a co-founder of Limina where for 18 years he has been delivering UX and technical design to his clients. His focus is on facilitating the implementation of scalable research and design operations. Lou and John discuss the concept of digital transformation and explore what it look…

Lou sits down with Atlassian’s Design Enablement Coordinator, Jess Norris, to discuss her talk on ADHD that she’ll be presenting at this year’s Design Ops Summit. After being diagnosed with ADHD a little over a year ago, Jessica went on a journey to discover the secret superpowers that lie within everyone with a neurodivergent brain. She now urges …

When it comes to design operations, it can be challenging to find the best method to provide the creative team with the tools they need that will eliminate some of their more mundane tasks to allow them more time to focus on their ideas and innovative work. Lou talks with Candace Myers, design operations leader with Netflix StudiosXD, about how she…

Lou sits down with the Head of Design for the Data Team at Amplitude, Courtney George, to discuss her talk “Scale Your Organization and Grow Your Designers” that she is giving at this year’s DesignOps Summit. What is a Design Leader’s role in providing stability for their team? How has that role changed over the course of the pandemic? Over the pas…

With the surge in popularity and need for hybrid and virtual events, Lou sits down with Intel’s Director of Accessibility, Darryl Adams, to discuss how technology can make in-person and virtual conferences more accessible and inclusive to speakers and audience members with disabilities. He also speaks to how accessible conference design can be impr…

Natalie Marie Dunbar joins Lou to discuss the lonely pursuit that is content strategy. She also digs into what it means to build a content strategy practice—whether you’re just starting out as a solo practitioner, scaling up in a large organization, or trying to make a case for your CS practice’s value. Her new Rosenfeld Media book, From Solo to Sc…

How can remote workers stay connected without burning out? At Wayfair, it quickly became clear that virtual happy hours and virtual team lunches were adding time to peoples’ schedules without really adding value. Rusha Sopariwala is a Senior Manager of Product Design at Wayfair, and she helped her team pivot to important new rituals for remote team…

How can individual designers use their skills to improve the experience of people in disaster situations?Emily Danielson, Senior Design Strategist at ExxonMobil, joins Lou to not only consider this question, but to reflect on past experiences—including the database she developed which was used by the FBI in a multi-million dollar federal corruption…

What is it like to start work on a new book on the big picture of design right before a global pandemic?Kevin Bethune, author of the new book Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation joins Lou to share his experience and insights learned from doing just that, as well as the importance of curiosity, how to understand one's own privilege, a…

How can you use the humble question to be a better leader? Over the past year or two, Brave UX Podcaster Brendan Jarvis has been asking great questions of over 75 of the best and brightest design leaders with the goal of surfacing the biggest questions facing the field, and using them as a springboard to becoming a better leader.Brendan joins Lou f…

If the past two years haven’t made it clear, researchers and designers absolutely must be prepared to understand and address trauma as a factor in our work and our lives. Social worker, designer, and Advancing Research 2022 speaker Rachael Dietkus joins Lou on the Rosenfeld Review to plumb the intersection of social work, UX, and how these play out…

Although large areas of the federal government focused on design as a practice do not closely involve the citizenry in their design processes, Victor Udoewa, Chief Experience Officer and Service Design Lead, NASA, has taken a vastly different approach to end user design methodology in government.In this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Victor bring…

Covid has fragmented our teams, workplaces, work rituals, and in some circumstances, our self-confidence. It has also forced us to learn, adapt, and improve our work at a stunningly rapid pace.It’s a great time to take stock of what we learned these past two years, and get ready to apply those lessons in the years to come. In this episode of the Ro…

What connects product designers and UXers? And does that connection help in the transition from UX to product management?In this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, you’ll meet Christian Crumlish, Founder of Design in Product and author of the soon-to-be released Product Management for UX People. Christian and Lou deep dive into the world of product m…

Creating and maintaining an inclusive environment that makes anyone feel welcome requires conscious and consistent effort. Whether it’s presentation, operation, or curation—incorporating your team’s voices in a healthy and organic manner as a business practice requires thinking outside the box.In this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, you’ll hear fr…

What can designers learn from astronauts and race car drivers? In this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Lou speaks with Katie Swindler to answer this and similar questions in her upcoming Rosenfeld Media book, Life and Death Design. Katie’s new book will help us redefine how we might view a core human function – specifically, the stress response – …

Angelos Arnis is a strategic designer focusing on delivering experiences with humane principles. For the past 10 years, he has been working with product/service companies and startups, both in early and high growth stages.Angelos is currently changing the ways of working at Posti Group, Finland’s postal service. He is a co-founder at Joint Frontier…

Sarah Brooks is a design leader and intrapreneur who uses strategic design and mixed-methods research to help teams and organizations reach better outcomes. She has worked in enterprise, federal, non-profit, start-up, and hybrid organizations. If you’re one of millions of US military veterans, her work at the Veterans Administration has touched you…

Martha Dorris, Founder and CEO, Dorris Consulting International, has almost 34 years of government experience in acquisition, technical and program management to customer experience. Martha has run many government organizations that build and deliver agency and citizen facing programs to deliver government services anytime, anywhere on any device.M…

Ariel Kennan is a service design and product development leader who has worked across the public, private, academic, and nonprofit sectors. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University. We are pleased to announce that she has joined the curation team of our new Civic Design conference …