How can UXers make informed decisions?
Rosenfeld Media
People who design great experiences have relied on Rosenfeld Media UX books and conferences since 2005.
This newsletter was originally sent out on July 16, 2024. To receive this newsletter on its posting date, subscribe to our mailing list.
July 16, 2024: Welcome back to the Rosenfeld Report! This week we’re diving into what’s driving UX decision-making. Whether we’re looking back to look ahead, holding thought-provoking discussions on how to advance research, or exploring what goes into responsible AI, we’ve got you covered. Happy reading!
Upcoming events
Discussion: Get Your Whole Team Testing to Design for Impact
» July 24, 2024 | 12-1pm ET
Experimentation can be intimidating to non-data science folk. But Erin wants to get everyone excited about A/B testing. In this talk, Erin Weigel shares the Conversion Design process. It centers A/B testing as a way to gather high-quality evidence to make highly informed decisions to improve your digital product. She also introduces the Good Experimental Design toolkit. These easy-to-follow templates usher teams through the logic needed to design trustworthy experiments that you can learn from. Learn more »
Discussion: Democratization: Working with it, not against it [Advancing Research Community workshop #1]
» July 24, 2024 | 4-5pm ET
Perhaps no word is more likely to get researchers agitated than “democratization.” The debate about democratization is vigorous, though verging on pointless: it’s here and unlikely to be dialed back. And other research functions are talking to customers, running surveys, and conducting A/B testing.
In this community workshop with Jem Ahmed, Steve Carrod, Dr. Shadi Janansefat, and Christopher Nash, we’ll take a step back and take a broader look at the field of insight. With viewpoints honed in data analytics, market research, and user research, our panelists will discuss how democratization has been made to work effectively in their fields for quite some time, and what we can do to imagine a future beyond the debate. Facilitated by Chris Geison, and followed by Q&A. Learn more »
» July 25, 2024 | 11am-12pm ET
Join us for this Community session with James Rampton where we'll dive into the automotive UX industry, the types of screens that go into cars, and the impact that tech companies like Apple and Google have had on the industry with products like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Discover the role phones play in shaping the strategy for companies designing software-defined vehicles. Learn what to call that screen in front of you while you're driving and why car companies struggle to make good experiences. Plus, we'll speculate why Apple gave up making a car and guess what future experiences will look like for both everyday drivers and those who can afford to have the car drive itself. Learn more »
📅 Virtual Workshop: Designing for AI: New Techniques
» July 31-August 1, 2024 | 11am-3pm ET
Missed out on this Designing with AI workshop? We’re offering it again at the end of the month!
The success of AI makes it feel like this technology is ripe for innovation. However, today, almost 90% of AI initiatives fail. In addition, innovation teams often fail to recognize low-hanging fruit, situations where a little simple AI would add real customer value. Current technical innovation approaches don’t work well when applied to AI. The HCI research community has been working on how to improve the process from brainstorming to prototyping to delivery. This workshop takes some of what Dan Saffer, Assistant Professor of the Practice at Carnegie-Mellon University, has been teaching students at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie-Mellon and adopts it for practitioners. Learn more »
Discussion: AI of the now: Designing for Agents
» July 31, 2024 | 11am-12pm ET
AI agents are on the rise: people are talking about them, getting excited, and putting infrastructure into place to support them. You may be asked to design agents soon—or you may want to think through your product as an agent in order to get a leg up on your competition. What’s different about designing for agents? Are you ready?
Rosenfeld author Christopher Noessel published Designing Agentive Technology back in 2017, and it seems like the world is just now catching up. Join Chris as he recaps the core ideas from that book, how agents have evolved since publication, and what it all might mean since the explosion of generative AI. Learn more »
💥 Conference: DesignOps Summit 2024
» September 23-25, 2024
We’ve just announced the lineup for the 2024 DesignOps Summit, taking place virtually from September 23-25! 🤩
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to elevate your DesignOps expertise. Register now and be part of the conversation that’s driving the future of design operations! Learn more »
Catch up on recent events
Discussion: Understanding the past to prepare for the future
» July 19, 2024 | 12-1pm ET
Interaction designer and educator, Erin Malone, takes a look back to the days of the emergent graphical user interface in her new book In Through the Side Door, Fifty Years of Women in Interaction Design. While discussing the new personal computer and some of the women involved in defining these new experiences, she recalls the disruption this new tool made to the world of graphic design and publishing with tools like the Macintosh, Adobe Photoshop, Quark Express and Adobe Illustrator. It was a time of existential change to an industry. Not unlike what we are experiencing today with the emergence of AI in all our tools.
What lessons might be learned from the past as we look to the future? How might we future-proof ourselves in this new world? Watch a lively discussion reflecting on the past to shape our future. Log in and view the recording »
» July 17, 2024 | 12-1pm ET
UXers are decision architects, guiding billions of interactions in our products every day. We have the power to shape user behavior in ways that add up to material carbon impact, while practicing inclusive design to reach a broader audience. As UXers, we also have the mandate to work at the intersection of user needs and business needs, which gives us the opportunity to connect climate concerns on both sides—even at companies that aren’t focused on climate solutions. View panelists Laura Palotie, Steve Isley, Nancy Tsang, and moderator Mike Brzozowski in this installment of our ongoing Climate UX discussion series. Log in and view the recording »
Discussion: AI for Prioritization (3rd of 3 seminars)
» July 11, 2024
This is part 3 of a 3-part series on prioritization, led by Harry Max, author of Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions.
As the hype of Generative AI starts to give way and unprecedented new capabilities go mainstream; prioritization will become both easier and harder. It will become significantly easier because you can converse with a chat agent who can wrangle questions about potential priorities in insanely powerful ways and respond seemingly authoritatively. With access to a vast selection of sorting techniques, frameworks, marketplace simulations, hybrid methods, and other relevant information, AI-enabled solutions will augment our ability to prioritize. But this will put pressure on us as humans to provide the guiding values, ethics, situational awareness, and other information to guide the AI conversation to a productive and sustainable end.
The conversation with Former Engineering SVP Mark Interrante explores the immense power of GenAI to fuel a revolution in prioritization and our ability to create better plans and make smarter decisions. Log in and view the recording »
Recommended by LinkedIn
» July 10, 2024
Knowing how to solve the right problem is only one small part of the product-success equation. And nailing the execution is harder than most people think. As Erin Weigel says in this talk, “There are far more ways to fail than there are to succeed” when it comes to experimentation. To help you learn, Erin shares some of the silly mistakes she made while A/B testing her designs. That way you can avoid those pitfalls as you work to make your digital product better—not just different. Log in and view the recording »
New books from Rosenfeld
Design for Impact is a down-to-earth A/B testing guide. It features the Conversion Design process to operationalize effective experimentation in your company. In it, Erin Weigel gives you practical tips and tools to design better experiments at scale. She does this with self-deprecating humor that will leave you smiling—if not laughing aloud.
AVAILABLE AUGUST 27
The User Experience Team of One (2nd edition) by Leah Buley & Joe Natoli
Whether you’re new to UX or a seasoned practitioner, The User Experience Team of One (2nd edition) gives you everything you need to succeed, emphasizing down-to-earth approaches that deliver big impact over time-consuming, needlessly complex techniques.
This updated classic remains a comprehensive and essential guide for UX and product designers everywhere—you’ll accomplish a lot more with a lot less.
UX perspectives
Curated by Uday Gajendar
9 human challenges with using AI Co-Pilots
» Stephen Anderson via Medium
Stephen Anderson raises the alarm on AI co-pilots for impacting our critical thinking skills. We already struggle with misinformation and false attribution, so the gullibility factor with co-pilots in the context of regular work is risky! Notable risks include “anchor bias” by going to ChatGPT first, while less manual writing reduces reflective analysis. Learn more »
Redesigning navigation with a user-centric approach
» WTTJ Tech via Medium
This case study details how WTTJ updated their web app navigation menu, for an application tracking system for hiring new employees. Painpoints were identified around discoverability and misalignment with brand architecture, as well. Consulting various user panels, conducting workshops, and rounds of validation led to a progressive deployment of the new nav model. Learn more »
Is knowledge known or created?
» Jon Kolko via Narrative
In this essay, Jon Kolko explores design as a knowledge generation activity, which has impacts on craft, critique, and persuasion – the core aspects of being a designer. There is a creation of knowledge via iteration, collaborative debate, and stories shared with stakeholders. By reframing design as a knowledge activity, this guides our approach to hiring and growing designers in their careers, too. Learn more »
The role of systems in decision making
» Michael Parent via UX Collective
We make decisions constantly as designers. Michael Parent urges us to take a deeper look into the systems around us that guide our decisions. It’s easy to make “good enough” choices localized to the moment via heuristics, or other cognitive shortcuts. However, by sensing the systems at play, we can reduce cognitive load, spark innovative insights, and amplify our productivity. Learn more »
IAC24: Responsible AI is an IA Skillset
» Rachel Price
Principal Information Architect at Microsoft Rachel Price gives a transcript of her recent talk at the IA Conference. AI involves probabilities and risks, so it’s best to think before you build in anticipation of bad outcomes. By diving into Microsoft’s Responsible AI standard, Price shows that IA practitioners are suited to be “the adults in the room” with their set of tools and methods, to navigate ambiguity, offer critical systems thinking, and cut through the hype. Learn more »
These resources were hand-selected by Rosenfeld Report curator Uday Gajendar.
Uday Gajendar, a product design director at Aurora Solar, has 20+ years of experience designing UX at startups, enterprises, and via consulting. He also speaks and writes on many UX-related topics, especially on strategy, innovation, and leadership.