Podcast: Personal Growth

077: Conflict Resolution for People Who Hate Conflict with Josh Mauldin

User Defenders podcast
Leadership
077: Conflict Resolution for People Who Hate Conflict with Josh Mauldin
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Josh Mauldin shows us how resolving conflict not only makes us better humans, but better designers. He challenges us to approach conflict with a growth mindset and the question, “What can I learn from this?” to help us become less anti-conflict and more pro-resolution. He articulates the difference between healthy and unhealthy conflict and teaches us why healthy conflict is good and even worth pursuing. He reminds us that it all comes back to empathy which does not mean agreeing with someone, but making an active effort to understand where they’re coming from. He also reveals how embracing conflict is the catalyst for building the best teams, the best products, and the best you.

Joshua Mauldin is Director of Design at Artium and an expert who speaks all over the world on conflict resolution. He is currently writing a book on the subject. He’s also written and spoken extensively about design for Smashing Magazine, O’Reilly Media, and more.

Joshua loves approaching design with as much curiosity and humanity as he can muster. Also, he’s a big fan of dogs. Cats, too. But mostly dogs.

His nickname in high school was Gumby because he could tie himself into a pretzel and jump rope with his arms.

  • How Long Have you Been Thinking About Conflict Resolution? (4:38)
  • Has Team Conflict Increased Since We’ve Gone Remote? (9:48)
  • How Can We See Past the Emoji’s? (13:53)
  • What Does Your Conflict Resolution Framework Look Like? (18:54)
  • How Does Your Cranky Conclusions Approach Work? (20:53)
  • Conflict Resolution for Leaders (28:14)
  • How Do You Address Conflict with Your Leadership? (32:08)
  • What’s the Difference Between Healthy and Unhealthy Conflict? (35:10)
  • How Does Healthy Conflict Create Better Products? (38:28)
  • Is Agile a Double-Edged Sword When it Comes to Team Conflict? (41:20)
  • Design Superpower? (46:13)
  • What’s Your Design Kryptonite? (47:08)
  • UX Superhero Name (47:57)
  • Habit of Success (48:36)
  • Invincible Tool or Resource (49:26)
  • Best Advice (54:11)
  • Connect & Keep Up (55:44)

Continue reading 077: Conflict Resolution for People Who Hate Conflict with Josh Mauldin

075: You Belong Here with Jessica Gaddis

User Defenders podcast
Land a Job in UX
075: You Belong Here with Jessica Gaddis
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Jessica Gaddis motivates us to realize that we belong here. Not only in the field of design, but in this often painful and perplexing world we call home. Why? Because somewhere, sometime, somehow…someone needs us. She inspires us to find our community because they’re already out there, searching for us and waiting for us to connect with them and even lead them. She reveals how she was able to on a very limited budget go all in and learn UX and go on to get her foot in the door as a Product Designer. From 0 to Netflix, and now Twitter. She touches on the unwelcome voice in many of our heads known as imposter syndrome, and reveals how she’s been able to successfully combat it. She also shares with us how advocating for black women in design by opening up her calendar as a mentor has been one of the most rewarding and impactful design decisions she’s ever made.

Jessica Gaddis is a Midwest transplant living in the Bay Area. Her mission is to create more thoughtful user experiences and to bridge the gap between usability and accessibility. She has a background in journalism and PR and her love for storytelling is at the heart of every experience she makes. She’s passionate about designing products that solve problems and creating moments that excite. Fun Fact: When she was a freshman in college she got an internship at a TV station back home in Detroit. Towards the end of her internship she had the opportunity to do an on-air spot about a museum exhibit. She was terrified and not very good but it was a great experience that taught her how much she did not want to be a reporter!

  • Origin Story (5:05)
  • Growing Up In a Techie Home (8:48)
  • Journalism + UX? (11:42)
  • The UX of Learning UX (18:21)
  • Teaching Should Be Every Company’s Core Value (32:15)
  • Have You Overcome Imposter Syndrome? (44:14)
  • How Do We Find Community? (50:00)
  • The Deep Value of Mentoring (57:59)
  • What Do You Want On Your Headstone? (70:13)
  • UX Superpower? (74:09)
  • UX Kryptonite? (75:37)
  • UX Superhero Name (77:38)
  • Habit of Success? (78:02)
  • 
UX Resource or Tool (81:04)
  • Recommended Book (83:11)
  • Best Advice (84:56)
  • Connect & Keep Up with Jessica Gaddis (87:21)

Continue reading 075: You Belong Here with Jessica Gaddis

070: Harnessing Life Experiences in Design with Shaheena Attarwala

User Defenders podcast
Empathy
070: Harnessing Life Experiences in Design with Shaheena Attarwala
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Shaheena Attarwala defends a woman’s right to design her own future, especially in the face of fierce adversity and opposition. She champions living ruthlessly amid oppressive whims and societal precepts. She’s a magnet that brings the issues forward and carries the water for anyone who dreams of raising their standards and never settling for status quo expectations. She’ll persuade you to hunker down, prove your grit, and rattle some cages if you have to. This episode is not just about design. So make your way or step aside. It’s time to hear her metaphoric journey, examine your own life, and bring more awareness to poverty and oppression. In other words…sh*t’s about to get real!

Shaheena is a UX Design Manager at Zoomcar, India’s first self-drive platform. At Zoomcar, Shaheena leads the UX team to build a definitive, hyper-local, multi-modal urban mobility transport solution for India and emerging economies, with close collaboration with cross-functional teams.

Born to a conservative family in a village of Uttar Pradesh to growing up in the grimy slums of Mumbai, her repugnant experiences propelled her to reduce ‘bad’ human experiences by creating more impactful and empowering solutions through a seamless union of human-centred design, curiosity, intuition and logical reasoning. In this journey of adversity, Shaheena is the first generation in her clan to rebel her way towards educating herself and changing mindsets about a girl child.

Shaheena harnesses her life experiences while building solutions. Living a frugal life has taught her empathy and compassion for fellow humans and the planet.

She’s passionate about human behaviour and cross-cultural experiences and loves reaching out to people and sharing perspectives, for she believes that is a sincere way to learn and form sustainable communities!

Apart from making the digital world a better place by building better experiences every day, she also endeavours to reshape the lives of the less fortunate by blending design, technology and her legal skills. Over the years, her initiatives to create a positive impact has received recognition from the United Nations.

Fun fact: She loves children’s bedtime stories even now. She asks close friends, her mom or siblings to tell her stories. If that’s not possible, she puts some online to listen to, and falls fast asleep 🙂

  • Origin Story (3:56)
  • A Kid’s View (6:25)
  • Oppression In Cultures (8:42)
  • Ah-Ha Moments (11:38)
  • Family Relations (13:48)
  • How Did You Find Design? (16:52)
  • What’s Driving You? (20:53)
  • Design Influence (22:26)
  • Legal Skills and Design (33:04)
  • Gaining Empathy (35:29)
  • Don Norman (40:59)
  • Teaching Curiosity (45:45)
  • Harnessing Life Experiences (59:36)
  • Story Banks (1:02:49)
  • Design Superpower (1:06:46)
  • Design Kryptonite (1:07:20)
  • UX Superhero Name (1:08:32)
  • Habit of Success (1:08:58)
  • Recommended Book (1:10:15)
  • Taking Risks (1:12:24)
  • Best Advice (1:14:26)

Continue reading 070: Harnessing Life Experiences in Design with Shaheena Attarwala

069: We Are All Pioneers with Sophia Prater

User Defenders podcast
Personal Growth
069: We Are All Pioneers with Sophia Prater
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Sophia Prater reminds us that we’re all pioneers in a field that is changing every minute. She encourages us to use forcing functions by getting the gig first, and then figuring it out. She introduces us to a design philosophy she pioneered called Object-Oriented UX which is all about taking really complex problems, and breaking them down into parts and organizing them. She also reminds us that in order to be successful in this field, we must become lifelong learners.

Sophia Prater is the Chief Evangelist of Object-Oriented UX (OOUX), a methodology she started popularizing in 2013. She teaches OOUX methodologies at conferences, within companies, and through 1-on-1 coaching. She loves mentoring— She leads the Atlanta chapter of Ladies that UX and she created the UX Hustle Summit Conference and she hosts the UX Hustle Podcast. Before starting Rewired, she led UX efforts for clients such as AT&T, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Athena Healthcare, Coca-Cola, the IRS, and the Australian Tax Office. As a UX designer at CNN.com, she designed the responsive 2012 election night experience viewed by over 200 million. In 2016, she returned (as a consultant) to do it again. Today, she focuses on bringing the magic of OOUX to companies and teams around the world. Fun fact: She’s super into city planning and urban design for walkability and public transit (the UX of a city!) — she’s been car-free in Atlanta for about 10 years!

  • Origin Story (4:58)
  • Biggest Failure (10:46)
  • Design Superpower (25:57)
  • What is OOUX? (30:27)
  • Design Kryptonite (38:12)
  • UX Superhero Name (42:28)
  • Habit of Success (46:57)
  • Invincible Resource (51:05)
  • Recommended Book (52:52)
  • Best Advice (55:26)

Continue reading 069: We Are All Pioneers with Sophia Prater

063: Mindset & Learning How to Learn with Jessica Ivins

User Defenders podcast
Personal Growth
063: Mindset & Learning How to Learn with Jessica Ivins
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Jessica Ivins schools us on the critical value of a growth mindset in UX Design. She teaches us how to learn how to learn. She enlightens us as to why it’s always better to generalize before specializing. She reminds us introverts that we can only truly succeed by extroverting. She also reveals how the best tool recommendations can only come when it’s clear what one is trying to learn.

Jessica Ivins is a user experience (UX) designer and faculty member at Center Centre, the UX design school in Chattanooga, TN, where she prepares students to be industry-ready UX designers.

Jessica dedicates much of her time to the UX community. She founded the Chattanooga UX Design Meetup, the first community organization for UX design in Chattanooga. She speaks internationally at conferences such as SXSW, Midwest UX, IA Summit, and UX Cambridge (UK). She publishes UX articles on her blog and on Medium. She’s also a voracious reader of design books, business books, and novels.

Before joining Center Centre, Jessica worked in the Philadelphia area as a senior experience designer at Happy Cog and the lead UX designer at AWeber. While in Philadelphia, she spoke at dozens of meetups and local events. She taught classes for Girl Develop It, led UX Book Club, and served on the board of Philadelphia’s UX community, PhillyCHI.

Fun fact: She’s loved unicorns since she was a small child, long before they were hipster cool. 🙂

  • Personal Passions (5:18)
  • Origin Story (6:28)
  • Biggest Failure (12:52)
  • Introvert or Extrovert (17:10)
  • Awkward Testing Story (18:30)
  • Design Superpower (24:46)
  • Design Kryptonite (31:14)
  • Secret Identity (33:09)
  • Fights for Users (34:41)
  • Habit of Success (35:27)
  • Best Tips (37:15)
  • Invincible Resource (42:10)
  • Generalize Vs Specialize (44:18)
  • Recommended Book (47:36)
  • Your Why (51:57)
  • Best Advice (53:13)

Continue reading 063: Mindset & Learning How to Learn with Jessica Ivins