The Informed Life – Details, episodes & analysis

Chris Risdon is a Senior Staff Designer at eBay. Chris describes himself as an interaction designer that tends to look through a service design lens. Alongside his co-author Patrick Quattlebaum, Chris wrote Orchestrating Experiences, which is an excellent guide to the practice of service design. In this conversation, we unpack service design: what it is, how it benefits organizations, and how it might be changing in light of new technologies like AI.

See full show notes at:
https://theinformed.life/2024/08/25/episode-147-chris-risdon/

Jodi Forlizzi is the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Forlizzi has a distinguished career as a service designer, researcher, design leader, and academic. In this conversation, we discuss the changing role of design in the face of disruptive new technologies such as AI.

See full show notes at:
https://theinformed.life/2024/08/11/episode-146-jodi-forlizzi/

Nikki Anderson is an independent user research consultant, instructor, author, and speaker. Nikki uses her background in education and psychology to mentor people and organizations on the value of user research. And now, she’s written a book to help them build up their research operations. That’s the focus of our conversation today.

See full show notes at:
https://theinformed.life/2024/04/07/episode-137-nikki-anderson/

My guest today is Peter Morville. Peter is a pioneer in the discipline of information architecture. Among many other distinctions, he co-authored with Lou Rosenfeld Information Architecture for the World-Wide Web, the classic O’Reilly “polar bear” book on the subject. This is Peter’s second appearance on The Informed Life podcast. I asked him back because I wanted to learn more about his recent call for practitioners to emancipate information architecture.

Listen to the full conversation

 Download episode 47

Show notes

• Peter Morville on Twitter
• Semantic Studios
• Intertwingled.org
• Information Architecture: for the Web and Beyond, by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, and Jorge Arango
•  The Informed Life episode 10: Peter Morville on Seductive Information
• Emancipating Information Architecture by Peter Morville
• Don’t Think of an Elephant! by George Lakoff
• Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences by Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star
• Pema Chödrön

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My guest today is Dr. Jeff Johnson. Jeff has been applying his background in psychology towards designing better human-computer interfaces for over forty years. He teaches computer science at The University of San Francisco, and has written several influential books on UI design. Among these, he co-authored with Kate Finn Desiging User Interfaces for an Aging Population, which is the focus of this conversation.

Listen to the full conversation

 Download episode 46

Show notes

• Jeff Johnson
• UI Wizards
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cromemco
• Xerox
• GUI Bloopers 2.0: Common User Interface Design Dont’s and Dos by Jeff Johnson
• Designing With the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Guidelines by Jeff Johnson
• Conceptual Models: Core to Good Design by Austin Henderson and Jeff Johnson (My notes on Conceptual Models)
• Designing User Interfaces for an Aging Population: Towards Universal Design by Jeff Johnson and Kate Finn
•  Tesla Model S Interior
• Google Maps

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

My guest today is Tanya Rabourn. Tanya is a design strategist and researcher based in Dubai. Her focus is on service innovation for social impact. In this conversation, we discuss the role of ethnographic research in understanding the people and cultures served by design.

Listen to the full conversation

 Download episode 45

Show notes

• Tanya Rabourn on LinkedIn
• United Arab Emirates (UAE)
• United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF)
• The University of Texas
• Mercy Corps
• Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
•  Service Design
• One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
• A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on power, technology, and domination by John Law

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

My guest today is Alexis Lloyd. Alexis is VP of Product Design at Medium and co-founder of Ethical Futures Lab. Previously, she led design and innovation work at The New York Times, Axios, and Automattic. Alexis has been thinking about the future of media for a long time. In this conversation, we focus on the evolving ways we consume and produce media.

Listen to the full conversation

 Download episode 44

Show notes

• Alexis Lloyd
• @alexislloyd on Twitter
• Research & Development at The New York Times
• Axios
• John Maeda (MAEDASTUDIO)
• Automattic
• Medium
• Ethical Futures Lab
•  The future of news is not an article by Alexis Lloyd
• Ted Nelson
• Project Xanadu
• Quotebacks
•  Link to Text Fragment Chrome extension
• The Informed Life Episode 6: Beck Tench on Tinderbox
• Tinderbox
• Zettelkasten
• Roam Research
• DEVONthink
• Building a digital garden by Tom Citchlow
• Pinterest
• Are.na
• Dropbox Paper

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

My guest today is Rob Haisfield. Rob is a behavioral product strategy and gamification consultant. He’s also an expert user of Roam, “a note-taking tool for networked thought.” In this conversation, we talk about Roam — what it is and how it can help you think more effectively.

Listen to the full conversation

 Download episode 43

Show notes

• Rob Haisfield
• @roberthaisfield on Twitter
• Rob Haisfield on LinkedIn
• Influence Insights, Rob’s consulting company
• Spark Wave
• Center for Advanced Hindsight
• Roam Research
• OneNote
• Rob’s public repository
• Spaced repetition
• Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
• DEVONthink
• GuidedTrack
• Rob Haisfield’s Tour of Roam Research (video)

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

My guest today is Nataly Restrepo. Nataly is an industrial designer specialized in food design. She works as a food and beverage innovation consultant for restaurants and consumer goods, and is based in Mexico. In this conversation we explore food design and how designing for experiences calls for a holistic understanding.

Listen to the full conversation

 Download episode 42

Show notes

• Nataly Restrepo
• Nataly Restrepo on Instagram
• Nataly Restrepo on Linkedin
• Food Design Education on Instagram
• Food Design Education Facebook group
• CENTRO
• Marije Vogelzang
• Play-Doh

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

My guest today is Arvind Venkataramani. Alongside Adam Menter, Arvind has been working on an open source toolkit to help people design secular rituals. In this conversation, we explore what rituals are and how being more intentional in their structure and use can improve our lives.

Listen to the full conversation

 Download episode 41

Show notes

• Arvind Venkataramani
• Adam Menter
• The Ritual Design Toolkit
• SonicRim
•  Graph of types of rituals
• U-Haul
• Virtual Memorial Guide
• Barn raising
• Anthony Giddens
• Burning Man
•  Ritual Design at Burning Man 2019 by Arvind Venkataramani

Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links.