Sometimes it can be hard for us as designers to know when to finish analysing research insights or evaluate which design directions to move forward with. Similarly, when we present users with too many options, they often end up not choosing any. We talk about analysis paralysis and how we can break out of it.

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New episode every other Friday.

Breaking into a new design role can feel daunting and overwhelming. In this episode, we share how we get ready before joining a team, the goals and frameworks we follow for onboarding, and our priorities in our first month(s) to set ourselves up for success.

Subscribe to our Substack or follow us on Linkedin.

New episode every other Friday.

Today we’re discussing feedback and how it can sometimes be delivered poorly. We explore in what contexts or situations poor feedback tends to occur and how we can best react to it. 

Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com. New episode every two weeks on Friday

We talk about mediocrity and low standards where design over time doesn’t deliver impact or meet the standards set by ourselves and others. We discuss what might cause mediocre design, how experience as leaders and designers can affect our standards, and what we can do to improve our design standards.

Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com.

This week we talk about toxic goal-setting and productivity. We reflect on the best way to evaluate growth at work and best practices to set goals for ourselves. We also discuss productivity and how to set healthy boundaries when we're caught into the hustle mentality.

Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com.

We talk about being human at work, whether that's our emotional states or more enduring traits of our identities and personalities which all influence how we interact with our work and our coworkers. We discuss the challenges of the notion of “bringing your whole self” to work and how managers and leaders can better support humans at work.

Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com.

We're back for another design conversation, this time about bad job search experiences. We share our own past experiences searching for a design role and what we've found frustrating and uncomfortable when interviewing with companies. We also open the Pandora's Box on design tasks and share a few tips on what to do with unpleasant recruitment experiences.  

Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com. New episode every other Friday!

In our first episode of season 4, we share our experiences of being introverted designers in extraverted workplaces. What challenges have we found, how have we overcome them, and what value can we bring by having more diversity of thinking and communication styles in our industry?

Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com. New episode every other Friday!

In this last episode of season 3, we look back and reflect over the season’s episodes and format. We talk about what felt challenging to us and what lessons we took away from this season. 

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

We complete our last theme for season 3 by exploring the when and how of gathering insights. When during design do we know we should gather insights? How do we get started gathering insights, and what are some of the common mistakes we make in doing so?

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

This week we continue our theme on Insights and deep-dive into identifying and using insights. We talk about the best ways to analyse data and extract meaningful insights, what methodologies we like to use and how visualising insights can be key to retain them throughout the design process. 

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday

We have the wonderful Léa Samrani on as a guest this week to discuss how product managers and designers can collaborate well with each other. We explore the differences and overlap in PM and designer roles and responsibilities, and the importance of nurturing the PM-designer duo relationship to drive better outcomes.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday!

Welcome to Design Kaffé, a podcast where we have mindful, candid conversations for designers in tech. In our fortnightly episodes, we discuss a wide range of topics to explore what it means to be a designer, the challenges we face in the tech industry and share thoughts about our craft.

Our first episode this season will come out on the 15th November.

Happy listening!

We’re starting a new theme on Insights and discuss the differences of being Data-Driven vs Data-Informed. We dive into how team dynamics or design process can differ with each approach. We also cover lessons from our experience and share why we believe in a Data-informed approach ourselves.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday

We round off our Management theme by talking about managing ourselves. How do we manage our goals—whether they’re project goals or career goals—and ensure we set the right goals to begin with? How do we self-manage both our deliverables as well as our ultimate impact and outcomes? And how do we keep ourselves accountable? 

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday!

We’re continuing our Management theme this week and talk about managing upwards. We share our experience and lessons on how to challenge or give feedback to senior colleagues and managers. 

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday!

This week we are kicking off a new theme on Management, starting with some reflections on what it’s like ‘to be managed’. We explore what qualities we value in a great design manager and what management practices have marked us in our experience.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday!

We round off our Productivity theme by discussing how we can be better at making decisions and be biased towards action. How do we create an environment where people are empowered and trusted to make decisions in the face of risk and incomplete information? How do we mitigate sign-off culture and decision paralysis, so that we can effectively move forward towards better outcomes? 

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday!

In our second episode on Productivity, we deep-dive into the value of slack: why is it important — and not counterproductive — for productivity to have downtime, take breaks, and not do work for a while? What does good slack and bad slack look like? How can we be better at incorporating slack into our practice as individual designers as well as teams?

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

In this week’s episode, Yuri Martins joined us to talk about accessibility and his approach at Typeform! We dive into accessibility by design, what a good process looks like and also chat about some of the big misconceptions about accessibility.

Yuri recommends the following resources for accessibility: Microsoft figma library, Twitter Figma library, Microsoft/Inclusive, Building for Everyone, Universal Design, Designing Voice User Interfaces

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday

We kick off a new theme, Productivity, by discussing the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. How are they different, and how do they go hand in hand? When should we focus on being efficient and when should we focus on being effective? What are our hacks and tips for have we can be more productive by working more efficiently and effectively?

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episodes every Friday!

This week, we cover our last topic in our theme of The Designer Role where we talk about those valuable skills that sit outside the core product design skills. We explore how service, research and content design skills can either often be included in your responsibilities or be stand alone functions that you collaborate with.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday morning!

We continue exploring the theme of The Designer Role by discussing whether or not a UX/UI Designer is the same as a Product Designer. Where are they similar? What makes them different? Do titles even matter?

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episodes every Friday!

In our last episode of season 4, we ask ourselves: do we need product managers? Can people in other disciplines, like designers and engineers, do product management, or is it essential that there is a dedicated PM on every team? When does it make sense to have PMs and when does it not?

We start a new theme about The Designer Role. Our episode this week tackles the controversial topic about UX vs UI 🙈. We talk about the differences in the two roles and explore the value of both being a specialist or a hybrid designer.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday morning!

In our last episode about Discovery, we discuss how we deal with ambiguity in discovery: when and how do we run into ambiguity in our discovery work? Should we always seek certainty or embrace ambiguity? How do we help our stakeholders deal with ambiguity as well?

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

This week is about Continuous Discovery! We explore how it differs from project-based discovery as well as some of the best practices about when and how to implement it in your team.

We are @UX_Maturity on Twitter and UX Maturity on LinkedIn — follow us there for the latest updates. New episode every Friday morning.

This week we are tackling the big mighty theme of Discovery. Starting with a first topic on how to design the right thing VS designing the thing right. We talk about how we frame problems, when we feel that it’s time to move forward within the design process and how solution phase also involves discovery.

We are @UX_Maturity on Twitter and UX Maturity on LinkedIn — follow us there for the latest updates. New episode every Friday.

For our last episode in our trilogy on how to not lose your soul, we talk about knowing our value as designers: when do we think we’re being undervalued as designers? What can we do to help the rest of the organisation understand what value we bring? To what extent does where design sit in the org chart speak to our value?

We are @UX_Maturity on Twitter and UX Maturity on LinkedIn — follow us there for the latest updates. New episode every Friday.

We continue our topic on how to not lose your soul by deep-diving into the challenges of staying creative as a designer. What is creativity in UX and design, and why can it sometimes be so hard to stay creative? What are some ways we can overcome our creativity blocks?

We are @UX_Maturity on Twitter and UX Maturity on LinkedIn — follow us there for the latest updates. New episode every Friday.

Sarah Doody joins us this week to talk about UX career and job search. She tells us about how we can benefit from treating our career like a product and gives many valuable advice to designers in search for their next role. Sarah is the founder and CEO of the Career Strategy Lab™.

Articles and videos mentioned in the episode can be found right here: how to write a case study, how to create a UX resume and how to optimise your LinkedIn profile

We are @UX_Maturity on Twitter and UX Maturity on LinkedIn — follow us there for the latest updates. New episode every Friday.

We explore a new theme: how to not lose your soul. How do we keep our soul as product designers? How do we stick to our user-centred values and principles while meeting business needs? How do we escape the feature factory?

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity or buy us a coffee to support us.

This week, we dive into our last empathy topic and talk about the importance of building empathy with ourselves. We discuss how self-empathy impacts us both positively or negatively at work and what practices we’ve tried to build self compassion. 

We are @UX_Maturity on Twitter and UX Maturity on LinkedIn — follow us there for the latest updates.

We continue our empathy theme and talk about why it’s important to build empathy with stakeholders. We also share thoughts on how we might be better at being empathetic to our stakeholders and building a compassionate culture.

We are @UX_Maturity on Twitter and UX Maturity on LinkedIn — follow us there for the latest updates.

This week we're talking about delivery speed and the fine balance to find with delivering quality. We explore why it matters, the impact delivery speed can have on the quality of the team's outputs and how we as designers can face this challenge.

Our first theme for the season is empathy: we define empathy, talk about the importance of building empathy with our users, and share ways we can be more empathetic with users throughout our design process.

We are @UX_Maturity on Twitter and UX Maturity on LinkedIn — follow us there for the latest updates.

In our last episode of season 2, we share our thoughts and opinions on what’s valuable to consider when switching careers into UX. See you in season 3!

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website: uxmaturitypodcast.com.

We talk about active listening: what it is, why it’s important, and tools and techniques to improve how we actively listen to our users, stakeholders, and colleagues — so that we can be better designers.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website: uxmaturitypodcast.com.

Joshua Mauldin talks to us about conflict resolution: what is a healthy conflict and what is an unhealthy conflict? How do we create safe spaces that nurture healthy conflict resolution? How do we use empathy in ourselves and others when faced with conflict?

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website: uxmaturitypodcast.com.

We talk about the importance of fun and whimsy at work, and how it fosters creativity, interpersonal relationships, and a redefinition of work itself.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website: uxmaturitypodcast.com.

We talk about comfort zones: what are they, how do we get out of them, and why should we get out of them? We touch on growth mindsets, being comfortable with uncertainty, and the consequences of having teams that are too comfortable.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

Kay McMahon talks to us about content strategy: what it is, why it’s important, and what skills are involved to ensure the right content is delivered to the right people at the right time.

The content strategy tools Kay mentions:

http://guidetouxr.com — Guide to User Research (UXR): A curated collection of 250+ resources & tools dedicated to user research, that will help you incorporate it into your design practice
https://answerthepublic.com — Answer The Public: uses search insight to generate questions around a topic (for idea generation, phrasing, terminology)
https://www.googlefight.co.uk — Google Fight: pit two words against each other for search volume (by country or worldwide)

Good sites and people to follow
https://builtformars.com/ — Built for Mars: for onboarding teardowns
https://workingincontent.com/resources — Working in Content: for people looking to break into CS roles (US focussed but some good articles)
https://twitter.com/halvorson - Kristina Halvorson
https://twitter.com/hilarymarsh - Hilary Marsh

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

Tom Kerwin talks to us about how we can do discovery and delivery at the same time: Pivot Triggers is a lightweight scaffolding framework he’s developed to enable teams to identify and gather signals to decide whether or not we should keep investing in an initiative.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

We talk about the importance of falling in love with the problem rather than getting attached to solutions, the value of continuously learning and identifying opportunities, how to approach “MVP”s, and why we’re never really “done” with design.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

Is everyone a designer? We talk about what role we have in helping people in other disciplines understand the impact their decisions have on end user experiences. We talk about the unique skills and perspectives designers do bring to the table, while also democratising design to others to increase UX maturity.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

We talk about money. How transparent should we be about salaries with our peers, recruiters, and companies? How should salary negotiations be handled or not handled? What about raises and promotions?

Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com.

We talk about what impostor syndrome is, why we might have it, and how we can manage it better. The more psychological safety we create at work to talk about topics such as impostor syndrome, the better practitioners, team members, and leaders we become.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

Tim Yeo (https://www.thequietachievr.com/) talks to us about being introverts in the design industry, how introversion is a strength and not a weakness, and techniques we can use to succeed as introverted designers.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

How do we avoid deterioration of user experiences by neglecting design debt and UX maintenance? We talk about the importance and value of fixing UX issues, paper cut bugs, and making small UX improvements over time — even though it's not the most exciting thing to work on. We discuss why it's a common challenge, and techniques we can use to ensure we tend to our UX gardens.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

Stakeholder management is a nuanced skill we all need to learn as practitioners. We talk about why it's important to manage stakeholders, discuss techniques of effective stakeholder management, and reflect on times we've managed stakeholders poorly.

Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.