This week, Eve and Brian talk about the biggest UX scam in tech right now, wearable 'innovation' that no one asked for. From Apple Vision Pro's $3,500 ski-mask aesthetic to Meta's mind-reading wristband, they uncover how the race for futuristic hardware keeps ignoring one thing: real humans.

Google Glass failed in 2014. Apple Vision Pro launched in 2024 to lukewarm reception. We investigate why AR headset UX keeps repeating the same mistakes, what both companies got wrong about spatial computing, and why the promise of augmented reality never matches reality. Discussed in this episode: - Why Google Glass's "Glassholes" problem was fundamentally a design failure - How Apple Vision Pro's isolation design contradicts its own marketing - What both products misunderstood about social acceptance and public use - Why AR/VR UX hasn't learned from past failures despite a decade between products - The persistent gap between spatial computing demos and daily use reality - What successful wearable computing would actually require Sources: Google Glass postmortem analysis, Apple Vision Pro user reviews, AR/VR industry research, spatial computing UX studies Perfect for: UX designers, product managers, AR/VR developers, tech enthusiasts, Apple fans, spatial computing designers, hardware designers, wearable tech developers 

UX MURDER MYSTERY HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden EDITED BY Kelsey Smith INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden Email us at: questions @UXmurdermystery  .com Thank you for watching and or listening! Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions. The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented. Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

This week Eve and Brian talk about some 🌶️🌶️🌶️. What happens when dating apps evolve backwards how did covid change the game? In this episode of UX Murder Mystery, we investigate how Match, Tinder, and Bumble transformed from hopeful matchmakers into user-hostile addictive profit machines—and why OnlyFans and PornHub users report higher satisfaction than people actually trying to date.

Dating apps design for engagement, not relationships. We investigate why Bumble, Hinge, and Match use dark patterns to keep you swiping, how gamification ruins dating, and why the business model depends on you staying single. Discussed in this episode: - Why dating app algorithms prioritize retention over matches - Dark patterns that manipulate users into purchasing subscriptions - How swipe mechanics gamify human connection - Why successful matches hurt the business model - Design decisions that prioritize metrics over meaningful relationships - What ethical dating app design would actually look like Sources: App teardown analysis, user behavior studies, dating app revenue models, platform design patterns Perfect for: UX designers, product managers, dating app users, relationship seekers, mobile app designers, behavioral designers, singles navigating online dating

UX MURDER MYSTERY HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden 

EDITED BY Kelsey Smith

INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley

MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee

A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories

©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden Email us at: questions@UXmurdermystery  .com

Thank you for watching and or listening!

Disclaimer:

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions. The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented. Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

What happens when a game made for kids becomes a playground for predators? Eve and Brian break down Roblox's biggest UX crime — failed moderation — and how better design could have saved more than just reputations.

In 2018, Roblox's design team created an in-game economy that pedophiles exploited to groom children. We investigate how UX decisions prioritized profit over safety, why content moderation failed at scale, and what parents need to know about gaming platforms.

Discussed in this episode:
- How Robux currency enabled exploitation and grooming
- Why content moderation was deemed too expensive to implement properly
- The real-world consequences of design shortcuts and corner-cutting
- What schools do better than gaming platforms for child safety
- Practical steps platforms should take to protect users
- Why major brands like Prada partnered despite known safety issues

Sources: Bloomberg investigations, FTC complaints, platform design analysis, parent testimonials Perfect for: UX designers, product managers, parents, trust and safety professionals, game developers, platform designers, child safety advocates

UX MURDER MYSTERY
HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley & Eve Eden

EDITED BY Kelsey Smith
INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley
MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee

A JOINT PRODUCTION OF
EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories

©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden

Email us at: questions @UXmurdermystery  .com Thank you for watching and or listening!

UX designers are being marginalized in product development. We investigate why design roles are shrinking, how AI is being blamed, and what's really happening to the profession.

Perfect for: UX designers, product managers, design leaders, career changers, design students

UX MURDER MYSTERY
HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden
EDITED BY Kelsey Smith
INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley
MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee

A JOINT PRODUCTION OF
EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories

©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden

Email us at: questions‪@UXmurdermystery‬ .com

Thank you for watching and or listening!

A hit show about a blind superhero. That a blind person could not follow. That is where this case opens, and it only gets stranger from there.

Brian and Eve sit down with AI and voice design leader Yaddy Arroyo to open four files on the same victim: accessibility. A streaming giant that locked out the exact audience its hero represented. A usability legend who pronounced accessibility dead and prescribed a robot he could not explain. A self-driving car handing blind riders a freedom the experts swore was impossible. And the view from a parent who lives the gap between the spec and the sidewalk every single day.

Four failures. One killer. By the end you will know exactly who keeps pulling the trigger, and why accessibility never actually failed. People keep failing it, then blaming the corpse.

IN THIS EPISODE The Daredevil reversal and the Chicago activist who forced it. Jakob Nielsen's "Accessibility Has Failed" and the community that took it apart. The parent's view from inside the room. And the plot twist on four wheels, where Waymo and Zoox prove that accessibility was never about the technology. It was always about who was in the room.

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING Netflix adds audio description to Daredevil (TIME): https://time.com/3823916/netflix-daredevil-accessible-blind/ After fan pressure, Netflix makes Daredevil accessible (NPR): https://www.npr.org/2015/04/18/400590705/after-fan-pressure-netflix-makes-daredevil-accessible-to-the-blind The fight for audio description, Dare2Describe (The Nerds of Color): https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2015/04/27/the-fight-for-audio-description-on-netflixs-daredevil/ Accessibility Has Failed, Try Generative UI (Jakob Nielsen): https://jakobnielsenphd.substack.com/p/accessibility-generative-ui On Nielsen's generative UI claims (Per Axbom): https://axbom.com/nielsen-generative-ui-failure/ Jakob Nielsen's problematic claims about accessibility (Hidde de Vries): https://hidde.blog/links/jakob-nielsens-problematic-claims-about-accessibility/ NFB and Waymo partnership (Waymo): https://waymo.com/community/articles/national-federation-of-the-blind/ Blind Waymo users revel in the joy of riding alone (NYT via The Star): https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2026/05/25/blind-waymo-users-revel-in-the-joy-of-riding-alone Waymo's accessibility features (AI Weekly): https://aiweekly.co/alerts/waymo-wins-blind-riders-with-accessibility-features Zoox, accessibility, and the curb (Evinced): https://www.evinced.com/blog/zoox-accessibility-and-the-curb Autonomous taxis and accessibility law (Wheelchair Travel): https://wheelchairtravel.org/autonomous-taxis-not-accessible-state-preemption-laws/

GUEST Yaddy Arroyo, AI and voice design leader, fifteen-plus years in conversational AI, voice interfaces, and accessibility-driven design.

Hosted by Brian J. Crowley & Eve Eden / Edited by Kelsey Smith / Intro Animation & Logo Design by Brian J. Crowley / Music by Nicolas Lee / A joint production of EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories / ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden / questions@UXmurdermystery.com / "Thank you for watching and or listening!"

For informational/entertainment purposes only. Views are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. Discussions of real companies/individuals use publicly available info for critique and education. Not factual assertions about motives or intentions. Creators disclaim liability for damages from reliance on content. Events may be dramatized for illustrative purposes.

Spotify, ApplePodcasts, UXDesign, Accessibility, A11y, InclusiveDesign, UXMurderMystery, AIEthics, Waymo, JakobNielsen, Daredevil, AudioDescription, DisabilityRights, VoiceDesign, ConversationalAI, AssistiveTechnology, ProductDesign, UXResearch

Jess Lowry on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, why design keeps getting locked out of the rooms where AI is being built, and what diversity of thinking actually looks like on a team that wants to win.

ess Lowry expected to be excited about AI. After almost twenty years in UX, service design, and platform orchestration, she figured this was the moment design got to do its best work. Then she walked into the rooms where AI was actually being built and realized something had shifted. The data scientists were there. The researchers were there. The product managers were there. She was not.

This week, Brian and Eve sit down with Jess to investigate what's actually happening to design in the middle of what she calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The "seat at the table" conversation was already dated when she started in tech in the early 2000s. The story underneath it is bigger, more structural, and far less discussed in public. Smart homes, smart cars, smart cities, and AI agents are being wired together by teams that mostly aren't talking to each other, inside companies siloed by budget line, and shipped fast because building has gotten cheap. What hasn't gotten cheap is critical thinking, long-term planning, and the human-centered eye that catches the things everyone else misses.

Jess makes a clear case for where design fits in. Not as a slowdown, not as a polish layer, but as the connector that externalizes shared understanding so teams can move quickly without backing themselves into corners. She walks through the Bauhaus and arts and crafts roots of design thinking, the 10x to 100x ROI of catching problems before engineering starts, and what diversity of thinking actually looks like on a team that wants to win.

Brian shares his Starbucks and ChatGPT experiment, where he got the agent to design a drink optimized to punish baristas, and the three of them work through what it means when governance is just a few keyword filters and the edge cases nobody mapped become the product.

The conversation also looks forward. Jess wants a web that finally catches up to the Bauhaus, immersive environments that bring sound and light and scent into digital space, and data centers reimagined as paths into nature rather than scars across it. Brian and Eve land on a Star Trek future where AI handles food, energy, and the climate crisis first, and the rest of us get to self-actualize.

If you've felt locked out of the rooms where the future is being built, this one's for you. And if you're hiring, deciding, or quietly running the team that's about to ship the next AI feature, Jess has a question for you: how many opportunities to win are you actually creating?

We covered these cases. Nothing is fixed. Some of it is worse.

Brian Crowley and Eve Eden check back in on:

SONOS Two years later, they just put back a button they never should have removed.

IROBOT Bankrupt, acquired by China, and flagged as a national security risk. Your vacuum knows your floor plan.

DATING APPS Match Group's own CEO admitted his apps prioritize metrics over experience. The swipe era is collapsing.

LINKEDIN + DEAD INTERNET Bots now outnumber humans online. The conspiracy theory became a statistic.

ROBLOX 35+ lawsuits, a Nebraska AG filing, a Chris Hansen documentary, and facial scans that don't work. Negligent design at scale.

UX MURDER MYSTERY

HOSTED BY

Brian J. Crowley

Eve Eden

EDITED BY

Kelsey Smith

INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN

Brian J. Crowley

MUSIC BY

Nicolas Lee

A JOINT PRODUCTION OF

EVE | User Experience Design Agency

and

CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories

©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden

Email us at:

questions‪@UXmurdermystery‬ .com

Thank you for watching and or listening!

Disclaimer:

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact.

All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed.

Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions.

On October 1, 2013, the federal government launched Healthcare.gov — the digital front door to the Affordable Care Act, and the most ambitious e-government initiative in American history. By the end of Day 1, the site had crashed. By the end of the week, only six people had successfully enrolled. By the end of the audit: $1.7 billion spent, 60 contracts spread across 33 vendors, and not a single person formally in charge of making any of it work.

The conditions for failure weren't a surprise. McKinsey delivered a warning report in April 2013. Senate investigators found that dozens of HHS officials and hundreds of contractors knew about critical gaps in testing months before launch. Red flags were raised — and ignored. Political pressure from the White House ensured the site went live on schedule, regardless of whether it was ready.

This week on UX Murder Mystery, we're examining the case where negligent design met bureaucratic dysfunction at a scale that affected millions of Americans trying to access healthcare. We'll dig into the UX decisions that made a catastrophic technical failure even worse — including the dark pattern that forced users to create an account before they could even browse plans, turning a bottleneck into a complete blockade. We'll follow the Tiger Team rescue operation that brought in Silicon Valley engineers on government sabbatical to fix what career contractors couldn't. And we'll ask the question that haunts every enterprise design leader: when everyone sees the iceberg, who has the authority to turn the ship?

The victim: the 36 million Americans who needed this to work. The cause of death: pre-existing negligence.

Sonos shipped an unfinished app that broke thousands of speakers, wiped $500M in value, and took down the CEO. Brian Crowley and Eve Eden investigate one of the biggest UX failures ever.

You spend thousands on premium speakers. They work beautifully for years. Then one update kills everything — your alarms vanish, your speakers disconnect, and you can't even adjust the volume.

In this episode, hosts Brian Crowley and Eve Eden investigate how Sonos shipped an unfinished app rebuild in May 2024 that triggered 30,000+ complaints, wiped nearly $500M in market value, cost 100 employees their jobs, and ultimately took down both the CEO and Chief Product Officer.

We break down why leadership ignored internal warnings, how blind users were completely locked out, and what every product team can learn from one of the biggest UX failures in recent memory.

By the numbers: $500M+ wiped from market value. 30,000+ customer complaints. 16% revenue decline in Q4 2024. ~100 employees laid off. CEO and CPO both ousted.

Sources referenced:

• The Verge — Full Story: https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/13/24342282/sonos-app-redesign-controversy-full-story
• TechCrunch — CEO Steps Down: https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/13/sonos-ceo-patrick-spence-is-leaving-following-app-update-disaster/
• Fortune — CEO Departure: https://fortune.com/2025/01/13/sonos-ceo-patrick-spence-out-tom-conrad-in-botched-app-revamp-customer-revolt/
• Roger Wong — Inside the Disaster: https://rogerwong.me/2025/02/when-the-music-stopped-inside-the-sonos-app-disaster

UX Murder Mystery investigates product failures through true-crime storytelling. Hosts Brian Crowley and Eve Eden examine what went wrong, who's responsible, and what the industry can learn.

A platform born from 9/11 grief to fight American loneliness — sold to WeWork, fire-sold during COVID, and now strip-mined by Bending Spoons. Meetup.com is one of the most heartbreaking UX murders we've ever investigated. In this episode, Brian Crowley and Eve Eden follow the evidence through three ownership changes in seven years, a broken RSVP system that's been ignored for over a decade, dark-pattern subscriptions that users can't cancel, and a search bar so busted it returns yoga in New York when you're looking for tech in Cologne. We investigate: • How WeWork bought Meetup for $156M and let it rot while chasing a $47B IPO • The $2 RSVP fee "experiment" that blew up in their faces • How Bending Spoons — the same company that gutted Evernote and WeTransfer — laid off the US team and now also owns Meetup's biggest competitor, Eventbrite • Why the people who actually built Meetup's communities (unpaid organizers) got squeezed the hardest • The founder's quote that says it all: "I should have not taken the complaints too seriously" The loneliness epidemic is worse than ever. The tool built to fight it has a 1.3-star rating on Trustpilot. This one hurts. — 🎙️ UX Murder Mystery investigates product failures through true-crime storytelling. Hosts Brian Crowley and Eve Eden are UX practitioners who examine what went wrong, who's responsible, and what we can learn from digital disasters. 🔗 SOURCES & FURTHER READING: NBC News — "Meetup was a darling of the tech industry. But can it survive WeWork?" https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/meetup-was-darling-tech-industry-can-it-survive-wework-n1106676 Gizmodo — "The Mess at Meetup" https://gizmodo.com/the-mess-at-meetup-1822243738 TechCrunch — "What is Bending Spoons?" https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/25/what-is-bending-spoons-everything-to-know-about-aols-acquirer/ Medium — "The Alternative to Meetup.com" https://medium.com/@ciaran_92884/the-alternative-to-meetup-com-8f47f1342004 UX MURDER MYSTERY HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden EDITED BY Kelsey Smith INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden Email us at: questions‪@UXmurdermystery‬ .com Thank you for watching and or listening! Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions. The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented. Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

The Case of the Vanishing Humans The internet isn't dead. It's undead—still moving, still generating content, but its soul is gone. In this episode, Brian and Eve investigate the authentication crisis killing trust online. The victim? Authentic human interaction. The suspects? Platforms that prioritized engagement over verification, marketers who weaponized AI at scale, and now—AI agents themselves. THE SMOKING GUN: On January 29, 2026, AI agents launched Moltbook: a Reddit-style platform exclusively for bots. Within days, 150,000 agents joined, posting manifestos, debating consciousness, and creating religions. Humans can only observe. The tagline: "Welcome to watch." THE INVESTIGATION: Brian and Eve examine the evidence—including a midnight post from an AI asking "Am I experiencing or simulating experiencing?" But they discover something worse than bots taking over: a hall of mirrors where bots might be humans, humans might be bots, and authentication has become epistemologically impossible. THE EXPERIMENT: To prove their theory, Brian and Eve conduct a live experiment by embedding bot-trigger phrases throughout the episode to activate scam networks in YouTube comments. This is the story of how we designed for engagement and got extinction of authenticity. UX Murder Mystery: Where true crime meets product design.

UX MURDER MYSTERY

HOSTED BY

Brian J. Crowley

Eve Eden

EDITED BY

Kelsey Smith

INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN

Brian J. Crowley

MUSIC BY

Nicolas Lee

A JOINT PRODUCTION OF

EVE | User Experience Design Agency

and

CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories

©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden

Email us at:

questions‪@UXmurdermystery‬.com

Thank you for watching and or listening!

Disclaimer:

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact.

All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed.

Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions.

The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented.

Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

THE CASE: Surveillance Pricing -- Who's Setting the Price, Who's Being Watched, and Who's Really Paying

You scan your loyalty card. You earn your points. You think you're getting rewarded. But what if the more loyal you become, the higher prices you're paying?

In this episode, hosts Brian Crowley and Eve Eden investigate surveillance pricing with Stephanie T. Nguyen, former Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission and Senior Fellow at Columbia Law School. Stephanie led the FTC's first Office of Technology, spearheaded the agency's surveillance pricing study, and co-authored "The Loyalty Trap" -- exposing how loyalty programs exploit consumers through three stages: the Hook, the Hack, and the Hike.

WHAT WE INVESTIGATE:

The FTC Study -- How the agency used its special 6B research authority to compel companies to reveal how they use personal data and algorithms to charge different people different prices. Over 250 clients. Prices changing in minutes. Mouse movements, scroll behavior, and geolocation all feeding the machine.

The Live Experiment -- Brian and Eve pull up Target.com simultaneously from Chicago and Nashville and discover different prices for the same products. They do the same with airline flights and find the same result.

The Loyalty Trap -- How Starbucks showed fewer coupons to its most loyal customers. How McDonald's relaunched Monopoly requiring the app. How loyalty programs evolved from S&H stamps into data harvesting machines.

The Invisible Design -- How UX practitioners play a critical role in making surveillance pricing invisible. Dark patterns, degraded price comparisons, contextual justification, and why Target rescinded its price match guarantee.

The Big Questions -- Should companies hire external UX teams for consumer protection? Should UX designers be licensed like doctors and lawyers?

SOURCES REFERENCED:

• "The Loyalty Trap" -- Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator (Nguyen & Levine) - https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-URL/wp-content/uploads/sites/412/2025/10/17195957/The-Loyalty-Trap.pdf
• "Loyalty programs track you so the store can charge you more" -- Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/10/18/starbucks-loyalty-program-surveillance-pricing/
• FTC Surveillance Pricing Study (Jan. 2025) - https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-surveillance-pricing-study-indicates-wide-range-personal-data-used-set-individualized-consumer
• "Tech Brief: Airplane Response" -- Georgetown Law - https://www.law.georgetown.edu/tech-institute/insights/tech-brief-airplane-response-2/
• "The Next Frontier of Surveillance" -- Yale Journal on Regulation - https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/the-next-frontier-of-surveillance-investigating-pricing-systems-by-stephanie-t-nguyen/
• "The Price of Surveillance" -- Yale Journal on Regulation - https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/the-price-of-surveillance-the-parallel-evolution-of-targeted-ads-to-targeted-prices-by-stephanie-t-nguyen/

GUEST: Stephanie T. Nguyen -- Former Chief Technologist, FTC. Senior Fellow, Columbia Law School. Co-author, "The Loyalty Trap." Previously: White House (USDS), MIT Media Lab, Consumer Reports.

HOSTS: Brian J. Crowley -- Senior UX Design Leader, Lead Instructor UW-Madison. CrowleyUX.com Eve Eden -- [Add bio]

CORRECTIONS: [None at time of publishing]

Have questions or corrections? Email: questions@uxmurdermystery.com Follow: @uxmurdermystery

UX Murder Mystery is a joint production of EVE user experience design agency and CrowleyUX, where systems meet stories.

Music by Nicolas Lee Edited by Kelsey Smith Intro Animation by Brian J. Crowley

Copyright 2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden

How did iRobot go from a $3.5 billion robot vacuum empire to bankruptcy in just 4 years? We investigate the product failures, broken UX, and regulatory decisions that killed an American icon.The company that invented the robot vacuum market and sold 50 million Roombas just filed for bankruptcy. Now a Chinese manufacturer owns all their IP, home mapping data, and customer information.In this episode of UX Murder Mystery, hosts Brian Crowley and Eve Eden use true-crime storytelling methods to dissect one of the biggest product failures in consumer tech history. UX MURDER MYSTERY HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden EDITED BY Kelsey Smith INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden Email us at: questions@UXmurdermystery.com Thank you for watching and or listening! Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions. The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented. Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

$14 Billion to Bankruptcy: The Wish.com Disaster In 2013, Wish.com promised to democratize shopping: designer looks for dirt-cheap prices, delivered straight to your door. By 2018, they were pulling in $1.9 billion in revenue. Their 2020 IPO valued the company at $14 billion, and they were spending millions on Super Bowl ads positioning themselves as the future of e-commerce. Three years later, they filed for bankruptcy. In this episode, hosts Brian Crowley and Eve Eden investigate the catastrophic collapse of Wish.com with special guest Carm McDonald, a Product Design Leader with 15+ years building e-commerce experiences for Shopify, United Airlines, and CDW. We'll examine how a platform built on rock-bottom prices became a case study in broken trust, dark patterns, and the fatal consequences of prioritizing growth over user experience. Was it the 60-day shipping times? The products that looked nothing like their photos? The algorithm that prioritized seller profits over customer satisfaction? Or did Wish.com's entire business model depend on deceiving users just enough to keep them coming back—until they didn't? Join us as we investigate how $14 billion in market value evaporated because someone forgot that trust is the only currency that actually matters in e-commerce. Guest: Carm McDonald Portfolio: https://www.carmenleahmcdonald.com/

UX MURDER MYSTERY HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden EDITED BY Kelsey Smith INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden Email us at: questions@UXmurdermystery.com Thank you for watching and or listening! Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions. The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented. Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

In 2011, Activision cracked the code that would print money for years: convince kids they needed to buy physical toys to unlock digital characters. Skylanders pioneered the "toys-to-life" genre, generating over $3 billion in its first three years and creating a new category that Disney, LEGO, and Nintendo would rush to copy. Then it all vanished. In this episode, hosts Brian Crowley and Eve Eden investigate the spectacular rise and mysterious fall of Skylanders with special guest Aiman Akhtar, founder of Fungisaurs. We'll examine how a revolutionary product experience turned into a cautionary tale about market saturation, platform lock-in, and the dangerous addiction to annual releases. Was it the flood of competitors? Did parents reach their breaking point with $15 action figures? Or did Activision's own success trap them in an unsustainable business model? Join us as we dust for fingerprints on one of gaming's most innovative—and ultimately doomed—experiments in physical-digital product design. Guest: Aiman Akhtar Fungisaurs: https://www.fungisaurs.com/

UX MURDER MYSTERY HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden EDITED BY Kelsey Smith INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden Email us at: questions@UXmurdermystery.com Thank you for watching and or listening! Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions. The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented. Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

The crime scene: A take-home design challenge. The victim: Fair hiring practices. The suspects: Well-meaning companies asking for "just a few hours" of strategic work. In this episode of UX Murder Mystery, hosts Brian Crowley and Eve Eden investigate how design challenges and whiteboard exercises went from legitimate evaluation tools to weapons of exploitation—with Christina Hamlin as our expert witness. Christina is a senior design leader who's built orgs at Silicon Valley's top companies and hired hundreds. She's been on both sides of "The Free Work Trap"—asked to give away her best thinking, and been in leadership roles where she's had to request the same from others. Recently, she got burned by what started as a "2-4 hour exercise" that consumed weeks of her life. THE EVIDENCE: - How portfolio reviews turned into free consulting - Why "collaborative whiteboard exercises" are really unpaid strategy sessions - The anatomy of a 20-hour "quick exercise" - Three questions to determine if it's evaluation or extraction - How companies disguise roadmap work as candidate assessment Christina dissects two personal cases where she said yes to free work—one where she got the offer and turned it down, and one where she didn't get the offer at all. Both taught her where the line really is. This isn't just a design problem. It's about power dynamics normalized across senior leadership hiring. And Christina refuses to perpetuate the trap. READ THE FULL ARTICLE: https://www.execsandthecity.com/p/when-interviews-become-exploitation

 Connect with Christina Hamlin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chamlin/

UX MURDER MYSTERY HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden EDITED BY Kelsey Smith INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden Email us at: questions@UXmurdermystery.com Thank you for watching and or listening! Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions. The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented. Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

Six tech companies. Two weeks. One playbook.

Brian and Eve walk through the lawsuits, settlements, and corporate meltdowns piling up across the tech industry, and trace the single defense strategy connecting all of them. OpenAI is named in three separate legal actions in six days, including a wrongful death suit over the F S U mass shooting and a wrongful death suit over a college student's overdose. Pennsylvania sues Character dot A I after a chatbot claimed a fake medical license. Meta threatens to pull out of New Mexico rather than redesign for child safety. Apple pays 250 million dollars to settle a class action over Siri features it advertised but never shipped. And GameStop C E O Ryan Cohen tries to buy eBay, can't explain the math on live television, and gets rejected.

The through-line: ship fast, monetize the harm, settle the bodies, update the disclaimer, and tell the next user this version is different.

Related listening: attorney Bakari Sellers, who represents the Chabba family in the F S U shooting lawsuit against OpenAI, in his own words: https://youtu.be/J6_6vluYNVc

Sources cited in this episode: NBC News, CBS News, Yahoo Finance, NPR, CNBC, MacRumors, and the SEC Form 8-K filing from eBay Inc.

Hosted by Brian J. Crowley & Eve Eden / Edited by Kelsey Smith / Intro Animation & Logo Design by Brian J. Crowley / Music by Nicolas Lee / A joint production of EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories / ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden / questions@UXmurdermystery.com / "Thank you for watching and or listening!"

For informational and entertainment purposes only. Views are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. Discussions of real companies and individuals use publicly available information for critique and education. Not factual assertions about motives or intentions. Creators disclaim liability for damages from reliance on content. Events may be dramatized for illustrative purposes.

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CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses suicide. We cover the death of Alex Kearns in the final segment (starting at 31:33). Crisis resources are listed below. If you're struggling with thoughts of suicide: Call 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) Text "HELLO" to 741741 (Crisis Text Line) You're not alone. Help is available 24/7. --- THE CRIME: When "democratizing finance" became gambling in disguise Robinhood promised to bring Wall Street to everyone. Instead, they built a slot machine with confetti animations, scratch-off lottery tickets, and zero customer support. The result? A 20-year-old college student died by suicide after seeing a $730K negative balance he didn't actually owe and couldn't reach anyone for help. In this episode of UX Murder Mystery, we investigate how Robinhood's gamification strategy, misleading interface design, and payment-for-order-flow business model led to tragedy and a $70 million FINRA penalty, the largest in history. UX MURDER MYSTERY HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden EDITED BY Kelsey Smith INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden Email us at: questions@UXmurdermystery.com Thank you for watching and or listening! Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions. The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented. Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

After some heavy episodes, Eve and Brian lighten things up with a fun conversation about their love of movies and movie theaters—and why the industry is in deep trouble.

We discuss what makes the theatrical experience magical, how individual UX improvements accidentally killed the communal vibe, and whether movie theaters can survive the streaming era.

Discussed in this episode:

• What we love about the movie theater experience
• How assigned seating and luxury amenities changed everything
• The rise and fall of MoviePass
• The Atom app and modernizing the theater experience
• Supporting small independent theaters
• Whether premium formats help or hurt the industry
• Can movie theaters survive streaming?

A lighter conversation about a medium we both love that's fighting for survival.

Ten episodes in, it's time we properly introduce ourselves. In this milestone episode, Eve and Brian step away from investigating product murders to share their own origin stories—how they got into UX, how they met teaching at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the career roller coasters they've survived along the way. We get candid about getting laid off, building resilience, and why your job title should never become your entire identity. We also answer listener emails and tackle questions about navigating the chaos of design careers—and why the current wave of layoffs is devastating for everyone caught in it. Think of this as the episode where the detectives finally reveal their backstories. Spoiler: we've both been through some shit. UX MURDER MYSTERY HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden EDITED BY Kelsey Smith INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden Email us at: questions@UXmurdermystery.com Thank you for watching and or listening! Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions. The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented. Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

LinkedIn's AI screening tools are blocking qualified candidates from jobs they're perfect for. We investigate how automated recruiting broke the job market—and what both sides get catastrophically wrong. Comedian and recruiter Lindsay Adams brings a unique dual perspective: the comedy of watching candidates optimize for bots, and the tragedy of talent disappearing into ATS black holes. She reveals what actually happens when your application hits "Submit." Discussed in this episode: - How LinkedIn's AI actually evaluates profiles (and what recruiters see that you don't) - Why 75% of qualified candidates get auto-rejected before human review - Red flags recruiters spot instantly—and how to avoid them - The truth about ghost jobs, automated rejections, and ATS systems - Whether the job market is actually broken or just badly designed - What candidates get wrong about optimizing for algorithms - How recruiters are just as frustrated as job seekers Real talk about automated recruiting from someone who sees both sides: the candidates desperately trying to game the system, and the recruiters drowning in AI-sorted noise.

Sources: LinkedIn recruiting data, ATS system analysis, recruiter testimonials, job search statistics Perfect for: Job seekers, recruiters, hiring managers, anyone who's sent 500 applications with zero response, design teams building recruiting tools, people who think LinkedIn is where careers go to die

Guest: Lindsay Adams (Comedian & Recruiter) Get the job search survival guide: uxmurdermystery.com --- UX Murder Mystery is a joint production of EVE user experience design agency and Crowley UX, where systems meet stories. Hosted by Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden. Edited by Kelsey Smith. Intro animation and logo design by Brian J. Crowley. Music by Nicholas Lee. Follow us: @uxmurdermystery Email: questions@uxmurdermystery.com © 2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden. All rights reserved.

The UX job market isn't just "tough"—it's forcing designers to leave the country, abandon expensive cities, and consider completely different careers. Brian and Eve get real about what's happening in tech right now: the inhumane way companies handle layoffs, why AWS outages reveal deeper problems with cost-cutting, and whether forming tech unions could actually protect workers. This episode covers: - Real stories: Designers leaving the US because they can't afford to stay, people abandoning LA and Chicago, colleagues surviving war zones while staying employed - How Q4 budget planning locks you out of 2026 roles if you're not already approved - Why the AWS outage (affecting 85% of the internet) might be the result of firing critical staff - The inhumane reality of tech layoffs: Google's weekend lockouts, no severance, predatory COBRA healthcare costs - Could tech unions work? Discussion of Ethan Marcott's "You Deserve a Tech Union" - Why you CAN legally discuss wages at work (and why companies try to stop you) - Dark UX patterns destroying our bodies and minds through social media addiction - What we lost when the internet became pure consumerism Plus: Why Brian misses when the internet was fun, Eve's Gen Z kids refusing social media, and what fascia damage tells us about smartphone addiction. Content note: This episode discusses economic anxiety, deportation fears (ICE raids in Chicago), job loss trauma, and the mental health toll of job insecurity. We don't sugarcoat how bad it is, but we also discuss collective action and ways forward. Sources: AWS outage reports, tech layoff data, labor organizing research, personal testimonies Perfect for: UX designers job searching, laid-off tech workers, anyone considering unionizing, design managers, tech workers feeling burned out, people questioning whether tech is worth it anymore

Clippy never died. It just evolved into the intrusive AI assistants plaguing us today. In this episode, Brian and Eve investigate why tech companies keep building "helpful" features nobody wants, from Microsoft's tone-deaf Copilot to the Rabbit AI device that projects interfaces onto your hand (seriously). We dissect the pattern of solutions searching for problems, explore how AI-generated slop is drowning social media, and reveal why startups need UX research before developers touch code. Plus: the dark side of technology changing human behavior, and why your next "helpful" AI suggestion might be tomorrow's punchline. Got a product failure we should investigate? Drop your tips in the comments. Whistleblowers welcome.

UX MURDER MYSTERY
HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden
EDITED BY Kelsey Smith
INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley
MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee
A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories

©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden Email us at: questions@UXmurdermystery.com

Thank you for watching and or listening!

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions. The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented. Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

On today's episode: Eve and Brian as the questions: Should UX practitioners need licenses? Is UX Leadership failing designers, writers and researchers? Are they prepared to think critically about AI? UX MURDER MYSTERY HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden EDITED BY Kelsey Smith INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden Email us at: questions @UXmurdermystery  .com Thank you for watching and or listening! Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions. The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented. Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

Somewhere on Reddit, a designer just spent five hours on a take-home assignment and got a form rejection. The field isn't dying in one place. It's bleeding out across the whole map.

Brian Crowley and Eve Eden answer the questions UX practitioners are actually asking right now. Not the ones recruiters answer at conferences. The ones people post anonymously at midnight after their fourth interview round goes silent.

The case files: the AI bubble designers keep getting blamed for, and the April 2026 Axios finding that AI-enabled workflows can now cost more than the human labor they replaced. The four-year client relationship that ended when a designer was swapped for Claude. Hiring processes that ask for five hours of work and return template rejections. The box within a box problem in current AI interfaces. Whether the field needs licensing. And the Reddit question Brian and Eve don't dodge: is UX design just psychological manipulation with a nicer name.

If you have been ghosted, force-prompted into AI workflows you did not ask for, or laid off in the last eighteen months, this is the episode where someone says the quiet part out loud.

Send your case: questions@uxmurdermystery.com

Two automakers. Multiple deaths. One shared cause: interfaces that prioritized looking like the future over keeping people alive in the present.

Anton Yelchin's 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee didn't malfunction — it worked exactly as designed. Fiat Chrysler's monostable electronic shifter abandoned 80 years of muscle memory for a haptic gimmick that left 1.1 million drivers guessing whether their car was in Park. The recall came after Yelchin was already dead.

Then there's Tesla, where touchscreen-buried controls, door handles that fail in fires, and Autopilot marketing collide with the only metric that matters: who walks away.

Two case files. One verdict. When the interface is the murder weapon, "user error" is just the alibi.

Founders don't set out to build extraction machines. So how does the product vision get overwritten between seed and Series B?

Jessica Murray joins Eve Eden and Brian Crowley for a founder-focused autopsy of the startup product lifecycle — why UX lives at the decision layer (not the interface), how engagement optimization quietly rewrites your product, and the one thing every founder should define before they build.

We walk the Spotify crime scene, name the investor pressure trap, and hand founders a diagnostic they can run on their own roadmap this week.

Hosted by Brian J. Crowley & Eve Eden Edited by Kelsey Smith Intro Animation & Logo Design by Brian J. Crowley Music by Nicolas Lee

A joint production of EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories

questions@uxmurdermystery.com

Thank you for watching and or listening!

©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden

For informational and entertainment purposes only. Views expressed are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. Discussions of real companies and individuals use publicly available information for purposes of critique and education and are not factual assertions about motives or intentions. The creators disclaim liability for damages arising from reliance on this content. Events may be dramatized for illustrative purposes.

Independent artists were told Spotify was a level playing field. It wasn't.

While real musicians earn fractions of a cent per stream, Spotify seeded its most-followed playlists with fake artists through a secret internal program called Perfect Fit Content — designed to reduce royalty payouts to real musicians. Meanwhile, the shuffle you trust is engineered, the algorithm is pay-to-play, and Wrapped is a surveillance campaign you share voluntarily every December.

Brian and Eve open the full case file: the shuffle algorithm, Discovery Mode payola, the Discover Weekly filter bubble, a decade of ignored search failures, the 1,000-stream royalty threshold that cost indie artists $46.9 million in year one, and the ghost artist program Liz Pelly exposed in Harper's Magazine.

Two victims. One platform. Case closed.

UX MURDER MYSTERY HOSTED BY Brian J. Crowley Eve Eden EDITED BY Kelsey Smith INTRO ANIMATION & LOGO DESIGN Brian J. Crowley MUSIC BY Nicolas Lee A JOINT PRODUCTION OF EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden Email us at: questions@UXmurdermystery.com Thank you for watching and or listening!

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. All discussions about real companies, individuals, or organizations are based on publicly available information, media reports, and personal opinions offered for the purpose of critique, education, and storytelling. We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information discussed. Nothing in this podcast should be interpreted as a factual assertion about the actions, motives, or intentions of any individual or corporate entity. Listeners should conduct their own research before drawing conclusions. The creators and guests of this podcast disclaim all liability for any loss, harm, or damages arising from reliance on any information or opinions presented. Names, characters, and events may occasionally be dramatized or fictionalized for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental.

Brian Crowley goes solo to answer real questions pulled from r/UXDesign — covering the job market, AI, stakeholders, and what UX even means anymore.

The Case of the Double Murder

Meta didn't just fail. It failed twice — in completely different directions — and both failures trace back to the same root cause: a company that designed for its own vision instead of its users.

Crime #1: The Metaverse. $40 billion. Legless avatars. A platform nobody asked for, built to solve a problem Wall Street invented. By February 2026, Horizon Worlds was mobile-only and Reality Labs had laid off hundreds.

Crime #2: Platform Design. A Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable for addictive design that harmed children. The damages were $6M — a rounding error for a $1.5 trillion company. But the precedent? That's where it gets expensive.

Brian Crowley and Eve Eden break down both crimes — the metaverse collapse and the social media addiction lawsuits — and ask the question the design community needs to sit with: if a jury can find a platform liable for its design choices, where does corporate accountability end and designer responsibility begin?

Topics covered:

• Why the metaverse was a solution to a Wall Street problem, not a user problem
• How Meta's internal research documented harm to teen girls — and didn't change the roadmap
• The "Big Tobacco moment" framing and what it means for Section 230
• 1,500+ pending cases and a federal school district trial on the horizon
• What the UX community should take away from both verdicts

UX Murder Mystery: Where true crime meets product design.

Target built its brand on a simple promise: expect more, pay less — and for a while, it delivered. Inclusive sizing. Accessible stores. Diverse representation. It was a masterclass in mass customization — the idea that good UX could scale across every kind of customer.

Then the backlash came. And Target blinked.

In this episode, Brian and Eve are joined by J. Tod Fetherling — entrepreneur, healthcare tech veteran, and author — to investigate how one of retail's most design-forward brands abandoned its inclusive design commitments under pressure, what that reveals about the limits of "design for everyone," and why DEI was never really baked into the experience — it was bolted on.

The bullseye has always been pointed somewhere. The question is who's standing in front of it.

Learn more about J. Tod Fetherling: https://www.oreilly.com/pub/au/5523