He got his Master’s in Australia, and worked in UX there and in Germany before returning to Aman, Jordan to help grow UX in the Arabic world.
With over 14 years of dedicated focus in information architecture, visual design, and interface design, Ahmed is a UX leader, teacher, coach, mentor, and speaker.
Show Notes
All times are approximate – hh:mm
Part 1
State of UX; Arabic World & Rest of the World – :05 Orange Jordan (Arabic language site) Career Foundry Ahmed’s online UX course (link coming soon) Evolution of UX in the Arabic World – :11 Nielsen Normal UX Maturity Model Building UX at Orange Jordan – :15 Balancing Urgent & Strategic – :21 Global Guidelines and Local Customization – :32
David Dylan Thomas (@movie_pundit), author of Design for Cognitive Bias, creator and host of The Cognitive Bias Podcast, and a twenty-year practitioner of content strategy and UX, has consulted major clients in entertainment, healthcare, publishing, finance, and retail. As the founder and CEO of David Dylan Thomas, LLC he offers workshops and presentations on inclusive design and the role of bias in making decisions. He has presented at TEDNYC, SXSW Interactive, Confab, An Event Apart, LavaCon, UX Copenhagen, Artifact, IA Conference, IxDA, Design and Content Conference, Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise, and the Wharton Web Conference on topics at the intersection of bias, design, and social justice.
A Book Apart Bias workshop content – :00 Guiding groups through the conversation – :06 Moral hazards of game play and goal settings – :07 Creating a safe environment – :10 Luna Jimenez Institute Three rules of productive discourse – :11 Brave spaces – :13 Wil Reynolds Spotting harm – :15 Growth Mindset Being human at work – :19 Is remote work improving diversity? – :24 LinkedIn post about drinking water during zoom interview What’s next? Being a bias informed leader – :30
For more than 20 years, Margot has taught workshops, keynoted conferences, and advised marketing teams around the world. She developed the popular message architecture-driven approach to content strategy and created BrandSort, a tool embraced by consultancies to help organizations clarify their communication goals. Her clients include the American Montessori Society, Harvard University, Fidelity, Lovehoney, Scholastic, Sallie Mae, Timberland, and the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority.
A participant in the inaugural Content Strategy Consortium and featured speaker at SXSW, Margot advises Women Talk Design, a platform for speakers in design, and teaches in the content strategy graduate program at FH Joanneum University in Graz, Austria. She lives outside Boston and lectures around the world about brand-driven content strategy and designing for trust.
State of UX – :02 Making room for more voices – :05 Balancing user needs and brand needs – :07 What is culturally appropriate for an organization – :13 Pushing back – :15 Dealing with burnout – :27
Part 2
Clear language builds confidence – :00 Nicole Fenton NIH Clinical Trials Getting buy-in for the work – :12 Design literacy – :15 Adjusting language to maturity – :20
Brian (@krianbalma) started at Zappos back in 2002, where he served as the Head of Marketing before until 2010. Brian was then the Lead of UX design at Gilt Groupe, and later founded Snipwits, which was acquired by Gemvara, where he served as Chief Experience Officer. Brian found himself continuing his passion of helping people live better lives and helping other businesses make an impact. He did that through the launch of his own user experience consulting firm called GetGlorious and worked as a Design Chief at a startup incubator where he was angel investing and startup advising. Brian returned to Zappos, using his knowledge of business and applying it as the Entrepreneur in Residence.
Brian Kalma has also co-founded WonderMile and Dough, and also served as Advisor at Flybridge Capital Partners.
Show Notes
All times are approximate – hh:mm | No links are sponsored
Brian’s background – :01 Company alignment – :06 Metrics – :10 Speaking to business – :14 State of UX – :19 | Shopify UX tug of war – :23 Intuition & process – :24 How do you learn – :26 UX’ers should run a business – :29 Startup vs. big co? – :32 Efficiency vs. Experience – :33 | Calendlydoodlex.ai
Debbie Levitt (@Delta_CX) has been a CX and UX strategist, specialist, speaker, and corporate trainer since 1995. Back then, she was strategizing websites for The Miss America Organization, Schering-Plough, local businesses, and customizing large eCommerce sites before off-the-shelf systems were a thing. On the side, she taught schoolteachers to write HTML and stop stealing images off the web.
As a “serial contractor” who lived in the Bay Area for most of the 2010s, Debbie has influenced interfaces at Sony, Wells Fargo, Constant Contact, Macys.com, Oracle, and a variety of Silicon Valley startups. Clients have given her the nickname, “Mary Poppins,” because she flies in, solves problems, improves everything she can, and sings a few songs. One client nicknamed her, “Tenacious D.” for being a change agent and tireless advocate for the customer.
Delta CX is the side of Debbie’s business aimed at corporate education, training, consulting, and bringing her team of veteran CX and UX experts to projects of all sizes. The Ptype (short for “prototype”) side of her business targets smaller projects and clients, many of whom are still learning what CX or UX is. Same model and core principles, different budgets and strategies.
Debbie has presented at conferences including eBay’s Developer Conference, PayPal’s Developer Conference, UXPA, and WeAreDevelopers. Debbie also writes a regular column for CMSWire’s Digital Experience channel. She is an O’Reilly published author, one of few instructors on the planet recommended by Axure, and runs public and private courses for CX/UX and non-CX/UX roles. Trainees have included employees of Oracle, Salesforce, NBC Universal, Intuit, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), Sephora, Newport News Shipbuilding, and consultancies including Razorfish, Fjord, Rauxa, and Slalom Consulting.
Outside of CX work, and sometimes during CX work, Debbie enjoys singing symphonic prog goth metal, opera, and New Wave. She now splits her time between the USA and rural Italy.
Dan Brown (@brownorama) is a UX professional with over two decades of experience in the industry.
Since 1994, Dan’s focused on digital product discovery and definition, user research, information architecture, content strategy and interaction design for content-heavy sites and complex web applications. He’s worked on teams large and small to perfect collaboration and productivity. In 2006, Dan co-founded EightShapes with Nathan Curtis to serve clients in healthcare, education, not-for-profit, and high-tech.
~3m – Changes in the work ~4m – Current Challenges – Definition of adulthood – No simple explanations ~6m – Speed of design ~11m – Design systems & thinking deeply https://twitter.com/jeffpatton ~14m – Missing design skills ~15m – What we call ourselves ~19m – Separation of research and design ~24m – Dual role of UX in modern software development ~27m – What we have control over? (serenity prayer) ~30m – Methods & Vision ~31m – Facilitating design conversations ~34m – IA Lenses ~35m – Externalize the process ~37m – Unconscious competence model ~39m – Mike Monteiro on presenting design ~40m – How to state a problem ~44m – Diversity in UX ~45m – Mentoring
Nick Finck (@nickf) is a UX professional with over two decades of experience in the industry. He strives to improve people’s lives through crafting well-designed experiences that matter. Nick currently consults businesses on UX design and research through Craft & Rigor in Seattle. Before this, he was in leadership roles at Amazon Web Services, Facebook, Ubermind, Deloitte Digital, projekt202, and his own agency Blue Flavor.
Nick’s contributions to the UX community go far and wide. He is an experienced public speaker and has given over 102 talks in 10 countries. He has mentored countless industry professionals and career transitioners. Nick is also the curator of UXSeattle.org, a resource for UX professionals in the greater Seattle area. Earlier in his career, he was the publisher of Digital Web Magazine, an online magazine for web professionals.
~2m – What is UX ~4m – Current Challenges ~6m – Goals & Metrics ~7m – Gung Ho Movie ~8m – Symptoms VS Deeper Problems ~10m – Structuring Orgs ~15m – The road to hell is paved with good intentions ~16m – Nielsen Norman Group Maturity Model Stages 1-4Stages 5-8 ~34m – Organizational Underwear (a simple example, not the originator of the phrase) ~36m – Building Teams ~41m – The Value & Potential in Junior Designers ~44m – Growing Teams and Individuals ~54m – Farmers & Hunters
