Dare to Lead by Brené Brown

Every so often I spend some time organizing personal files and run across an interesting note I’ve captured reading a book or article. I found these few bullet points I had jotted down while going through Dare to Lead that I found so useful, and surprisingly pertinent to my career as a UX Design Leader. Highly recommend this book, it’s worth the time for any young professional looking to lead people effectively.

Key takeaways:

• What stands in the way, becomes the way.

• Don’t avoid tough conversations putting politeness over clarity.

• Focus more on scary feelings that arise with change. 

• Don’t focus on problematic behaviors.

• Connection & empathy builds trust.

• Embrace failures and risks.

• Focus more time on fixing what broke, not on reassuring people–they are ‘still’ valuable.

• Focus on accountability & learning, not shame & blame.

• Stay dedicated to problem identification. 

• Don’t rush to big blind swings.

• Be measurable.

• Strive for progress not perfectionism.

10 Awesome UX Design Podcasts

If you are new to Podcasts or have already discovered this amazing technology for design literacy already.

I’ll admit there are a large number of podcast episodes framed to showcase content authors on a book tour, but the nuances of communication unlocked by longer conversations surface some often greater insights beyond the usual scope of Tweets, Medium articles, and books. I strongly recommend you give the following shows a try if you’re interested in the conversation surrounding UX/UI Design and business.

High Resolution

Design thinking and product design discussions with design and business leaders.

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UI Breakfast

Practical interview with cutting edge and inspiring designers, developers, researchers and business leaders. Great way of finding inspiring work, products and workflows from talented people.

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Design Matters

Debbie Millman asks industry leaders smart questions about their process, workflow, and experience.

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User Defenders

The host teases our great stories from epic designer guests. Production quality and use of time are both impressive.

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Method Podcast

Huge variety of design topics covered by Google in this podcast. Great way to stay up to date with the most cutting edge best practices and perspectives in design today.

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DesignBetter.co Podcast

Cool conversations with design and business leaders with emphasis on organization and leadership concepts.

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A Responsive Web Design Podcast

Karen McGrane and Ethan Marcotte get into project workflow details and valuable lessons learned following impressive responsive website redesign projects. Bummer this podcast had to end–some great insight especially regarding content strategy and design system interplay.

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O’Reilly Design Podcast

Always relevant and future thinking interviews and Q&A with cutting edge designers. Good way to find new inspiring people to follow.

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Invision Design Talks (YouTube)

Super relevant discussions from Invision whose content (like their products) is always well thought and a great use of time. Audio versions of these talks are available through some podcast apps.

View YouTube Channel

5 Great Design Books for Your UX Library

Starting a UX library in your studio? Here’s a list of some of my favorite UX books and a few key takeaways. Enjoy!

A Project Guide to UX Design

By Carolyn Chandler, Russ Unger

There are a ton of well-reviewed books and readers for the general UX practitioner available. However, this one still stands out on my shelf as a great primer to get your head around UX for most projects. The project guide illustrates how UX Design connects multiple design disciplines including business strategy, research, interaction design, and engineering.

Explore Book (GoodReads)

Now, Discover Your Strengths

By Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton

I first learned of this book listening to a video blog from UX designer, Sarah Doody. The book is a well researched albeit prescriptive method devised to make you aware of your innate professional talents and intuitions and learn how to best harness them in the workplace. Arguably, It's most sustainable to build your career around your natural superpowers and curiosities above pure ambition and will. Check out this book and accompanying assessment (worth it) and you might be enlightened.

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Lean UX

By Jeff Gothelf

An extension to the canonical book, The Lean Startup, Lean UX provides an ultra-concise, principled overview of UX Design’s role in agile projects. It also provides thoughtful, sustainable action steps for integrating the lean approach to organizations of various shapes and sizes.

Few of my favorite takeaways:

• Progress = outcomes, not output.

• Create the first version of the thing rather than spending half the day debating its merits in a conference room.

• Emphasize learning first and scaling second.

• Figure out what you’re trying to learn, and the fastest way you can learn it.

• Created a shared understanding of design problems and solutions.

• Collaborate: creating together increases the design IQ of the entire team.

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Everybody Writes

By Ann Handley

The more screens I design, the more I appreciate the value of written communication as a digital designer’s skillset. Understanding the people who use the product your designing should include comprehending how to communicate with them naturally, contextually and with relevance to their needs through the business lens. This book will help you write with intention and consistency for the web and in business communication in general. I picked up this book up on a whim and am so glad I did. 

Explore Book (GoodReads)

Universal Methods of Design

By Bella Martin, Bruce M. Hanington

100 design techniques to try when approaching a design challenge. Concise summary of each method and good perspective on usage.

Explore Book (GoodReads)

Conclusion

Tangible books may be a slowly dying technology as digital formats take over. Thankfully, all of these titles are available in digital format. Either way you prefer to read, I suggest taking notes in the margins of books or on sticky notes. And once you’ve completed any great book, try synthesizing your notes to help a friend or colleague understand a few of the most valuable highlights. Educating someone else is a great way to retain newly gathered information.

Happy Reading!

UX Design and Ego

It's important to remember the best design wisdom may come from anyone on your project team. And the best way to empathize with the users you design for is to understand where your ego starts and stops as a designer and thinker. It's easy to make biased design decisions based on your own, albeit compelling perspectives that may not be relevant. 

Good discussion of ego and professionalism on the Love Your Work podcast.

"The strength of our ego boundaries is the result of each properly resolved developmental crisis." 

- John Bradshaw

"Innovation is the state once drama is gone."

- Cy Wakeman

Design and the Gig Economy

Creating this post as a reminder that what we design solves business and customer problems–but it can also negatively impact real lives. This is especially apparent in exciting startups in the gig economy space. It's important to think deeply about the impact our design innovation and mission might have on humanity.

“As the gig economy grows, so too does the danger that engineers, in attempting to build the most efficient systems, will chop and dice jobs into pieces so dehumanized that our legal system will no longer recognize them.”

Read: “What Have We Done?”: Silicon Valley Engineers Fear They've Created A Monster