For episode 22 of the podcast, I was joined by my Adobe colleague Laura Herman, a user researcher for some of our mobile and emerging products in the creative space. As Laura and I are big fans of her work, we were excited to speak to Payal Arora, researcher, author, professor, and speaker. Her well-known book 'The Next Billion Users - Digital Life Beyond the West' has been described as, "A ‘must-read’ for anyone interested in digital uses around the world.”  We were interested in asking her...

I had a great time speaking with the author, university professor, and UX strategist Jaime Levy.  Her best-selling book UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want gets top results for UX on Amazon and has just come out in its second edition. I was excited to hear about her career and how she approached the second edition of her book. We had a fun walk down memory lane hearing about her upbringing in LA where she was exposed to the entertainment industry. While she...

In this 20th episode, I talk with Phillip Golub, VP, Digital Product Experience and Innovation at Symphony Talent, based in Washington, DC. He shares about his 25-year journey as an information architect, designer, and design leader at a number of companies including his own agency he started in high school, Isobar, Amex, Sapient, and now Symphony Talent where he heads up UX. Phil also shares about his creative podcast What Bubbles Up, which he started up during the pandemic with his friend...

In this 19th episode, I talk with Tom Foley, Creative Type Director for Monotype, based in London. Tom reflects on his deep experience designing type in the past 10 years and how things have changed with the introduction of variable fonts, current type...

In this 18th episode, I talk with Matt Bennett, Founder & Creative Director at iid, a brand strategy & design agency headquartered in San Francisco. He is also a professor at Academy of Art University. Matt and I have known each other for more...

In this 17th episode, I talk with Darren Crawforth, Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy Shanghai. Darren shared his experience going back to the office in China. He talks about the different mindset in China compared to other parts of the world and...

I had a very inspiring chat with graphic designer, educator, publisher, and event organizer Esen Karol, who is based in Istanbul, Turkey. Esen shared her personal journey of becoming a type and graphic designer - starting as a young girl in Istanbul,...

I was very fortunate to speak with Pernilla Johansson, Chief Design Officer at Electrolux, and based in Stockholm, Sweden. I enjoyed our very full discussion about her journey to becoming a design leader. She started her first job with Philips and it...

Leandro Agro', Design Director at Design Group Italia, shares his thoughts on ways to create more engaging collaborative video calls. He attempts to bridge the physical and digital by bringing in objects and green screen elements to create "stages" to...

It was a truly fascinating opportunity to speak with Uta Knablein about her UX design team's work doing research and design at iHeartRadio during the pandemic. Uta offers much-needed tips on how to manage a design team remotely. Onboard new team members...

I was very lucky to speak with Ovetta Sampson, Principal Creative Director at Microsoft. I enjoyed our animated discussion about how she got her start wanting to be the Queen of England when she was a nine-year-old in Chicago while learning to code with...

Lockdown has given Mauro Porcini, Chief Design Officer at PepsiCo, the chance to slow down, enjoy the details of life, and write a book that captured his life experiences leading large design teams. I was fortunate to hear about his new book and what he...

For the 10th episode of the podcast, I had the great pleasure to "travel" to Poland to chat with Radek Taraszka, a product design lead at UXPin, a UX design and prototyping software company based in Gdańsk, Poland. My favorite lesson Radek gained from...

Worldwide Creative Officer of EF Education First Joel Hladecek shares his personal experiences of how he has overcome three crises - the Dot-com crash, the 2008 financial crisis, and now Covid-19. From the ending of a company to the loss of a job, based...

I had a fun and inspiring chat with UX firm founder Adam Faulkner in Sydney, Australia. Adam shared his thoughts on how he keeps his team morale up through staging virtual community events and "Quarantini" online gatherings. He also talked about how the...

In our 7th episode of Recliner Designer, I had the great pleasure to speak to Helen Kokk, a lead service designer from Tallinn, Estonia. Helen told me why Tallinn has the most tech startups in the EU. She explains that Estonia's X-Road, a centrally...

In this episode, we travel across the Pacific to Sydney, Australia to speak to Krister, who is an experience designer, educator, and author. He tells us how through quarantine he found an opportunity to create a book and course focused on helping...

Momo Estrella is an interaction designer in Shanghai, China leading UX at IKEA. He talks about his experience transitioning from IDEO to IKEA in the middle of the pandemic and how strange it was coming out of quarantine a month and a half ago to go to...

In this latest podcast, I was fortunate to speak with Diego Kolsky, a design leader, ECD, and design educator. Diego leads cross-disciplinary teams working on innovations, deep transformations and high-impact design initiatives. He works with studio...

Our third episode is with seasoned designer and author Charlie Brewer, who explains how being sheltered at home allows him to work when it suits his peak energy levels. Charlie is a user experience designer and product manager with over 20 years of...

Design manager Gabe Wasserman in San Francisco shares some great ways he engages his team during the quarantine by having "Doodle Thursdays" and special birthday Slack channels, to keep the culture alive in his team. Design manager Gabe Wasserman in San...

Debut episode #1 for Recliner Designer podcast is with guest Silvio Sangineto, an Italian UX designer working in San Francisco and about to move to Redmond, WA. Silvio shares his amazing experiences working around the world and how he started his new...