Voice of Design – Details, episodes & analysis

We sit down with Max-Beverton Palmer, Head of Tech and Society at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, to discuss his work helping policy-makers address challenges around the world.

Max wanted you all to know that the world has clearly changed a lot since this podcast was recorded, but the political and technology principles discussed haven’t. The Institute Max works for has pivoted to tackling the crisis. You can find more here, and two reports on how we use tech to get through the current crisis:

Digital Policy for a Lockdown: How Tech Can Help Us Adapt to a Radically Altered World

A Price Worth Paying: Tech, Privacy and the Fight Against Covid-19

 

EPISODE LINKS

• Max on Twitter



• Narratives of Hate: The Spectrum of Far-right Worldviews in the UK



• Diversify by June Sarpong



• The Bretton Woods Conference, 1944



• Sky parental control design

 

 

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit voiceofdesign.substack.com

We get the band back together! Our lawyer Gabe Levine joins us to reminisce about contract negotiations past and discuss the fundamentals of negotiation for designers, or anyone, really.

 

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EPISODE LINKS

• Gabriel Levine | LinkedIn



• Matchstick | Lawyers for creative business



• Matchstick | Service Agreement Field Manual



• Running From the Law



• Welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism | The Guardian

 

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit voiceofdesign.substack.com

We are joined by Lynne Polischuik, a veteran researcher, founder of LynneUX, and Canadian with a small weird dog. She shares what she’s learned over her career moving from marketing and analytics to the qualitative side of things working with organizations like Google, Automattic, and HealthCare.gov.

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EPISODE LINKS 

• Lynne on Twitter



• Clement Mok



• On Surveys

 

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit voiceofdesign.substack.com

Mike, who makes better coffee than Larisa, and Larisa, who is better at math than Mike, are joined in the studio by David Dylan Thomas to talk about cognitive bias.

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EPISODE LINKS 

• daviddylanthomas.com



• David on Twitter



• David on Medium



• Cognitive bias - Wikipedia



• Hawthorne effect - Wikipedia



• Clever Hans - Wikipedia



• Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of“Blind” Auditions on Female Musicians



• Rhyme-as-reason effect - Wikipedia



• Plain Language Act



• 18F



• When It Comes to Gorillas, Google Photos Remains Blind



• The Cognitive Bias podcast



• Think Company



• Letter from Birmingham Jail - Wikipedia



• The Lobster



• The Favorite



• Rizzo statue will remain at Thomas Paine Plaza for now

 

 

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit voiceofdesign.substack.com

We sit down with the legendary Jen Simmons, currently Designer and Developer Advocate at Mozilla, to take stock of the web in 2019. Design, technology, platforms, ethics, operations, remix culture, CSS. It’s all in there.

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EPISODE LINKS 

• Jen Simmons



• Jen Simmons on Twitter



• The Web Ahead



• CSS Grid Inspector



• Say hello, new logo | The Official Slack Blog



• The Experimental Layout Lab



• Cut the Bias | A Mule Workshop



• The Anatomy of Change | What we’ve learned from our own gender bias workshop



• The Little Book of Common Sense Investing



• In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell



• Layout Land



• This is Marketing | Seth’s Blog



• Everything You Know About Web Design Just Changed by Jen Simmons

  

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit voiceofdesign.substack.com

We catch up with John Mahoney, Vice President of Digital Products at National Audubon Society for the National Audubon Society. Four years after a successful launch, we reflect on what it took to create a flexible new design system and achieve lasting change for a complex organization. A big part was “soaking in the pain.”

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EPISODE LINKS 

• National Audubon Society



• John Mahoney on Twitter



• The Audubon Bird Guide App



• Birds!



• American Animals



• A Rare Copy of Audubon’s ‘Birds of America’ Heads to Auction to Benefit Conservation

 

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit voiceofdesign.substack.com

We welcome Nate Bolt, the founder of Ethnio and author of Remote Research, to talk about talking to the right people, why so many businesses go about qualitative research the wrong way, and how powerful a simple conversation can be.

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EPISODE LINKS 

 

• Ethnio



• General Magic



• Dementia & User Research

  

image: Casual Friday Gets *Really* Weird by Nate Bolt via Flickr

 

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit voiceofdesign.substack.com

Stephanie Lucas, Senior UX Designer at LinkedIn joins us to share how she incorporated principles from the Mule ethics workshop into her practice. Inspired by a comment from another participant, Stephanie created a Red Team/Blue Team workshop to uncover how bad actors might wreak havoc on the platform. We talk about using an ethical framework to make better choices.

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EPISODE LINKS 

 

• Stephanie Lucas - Senior UX Designer, Member Trust, Privacy, and Help



• What Are“Ethics in Design”?



• Mule Workshop :: Design Ethics



• 
  A Designer’s Code of Ethics Posters
  



• Madame Bovary



• HBO | Silicon Valley



• Black Mirror



• BoJack Horseman



• One of Us



• The Well



• Vice News | We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them.



• The Matrix

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit voiceofdesign.substack.com

It’s a new season of VOD, and the theme is design practice. After contemplating the tyranny of seaside pumpkins, Erika and Larisa talk about the promise and pitfalls of various approaches to design in the delivery-focused organization. 

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EPISODE LINKS 

 

• Trader Joe’s pumpkin products



• Pumpkin Festival



• The Irish Coffee Story

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit voiceofdesign.substack.com

Is the problem with systems design that we’ve forgotten how to make good compromises? Strategic designer and co-founder of Dash Marshall Bryan Boyer talks about his work thinking about the future from the vantage point of Detroit and formerly, Finland.

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EPISODE LINKS 

 

• Dash Marshall



• Civic Futures: Notes on Dash Marshall’s work at the intersection of architecture, technology, and society



• HDL Blog - Helsinki Design Lab



• Construction of Michigan's tallest building begins with underground demolition



• Six Powerful insights from the creative shape shifter, R. Buckminster Fuller



• Richard Buckminster Fuller, Furthering Humanity

 

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit voiceofdesign.substack.com