All Episodes
#167 - Summer Throwback: Teresa Torres on Continuous Discovery Methods
Welcome to Summer Throwbacks, where we revisit some of Awkward Silences' most memorable episodes. This week brings back an evergreen conversation with Product Talk's T...
#166 - Summer Throwback: Erika Hall on Why Surveys (Almost Always) Suck
Welcome to Summer Throwbacks, where we revisit some of Awkward Silences' most memorable episodes. This week features a conversation with Erika Hall on the misuses of s...
#165 - High Impact Research on Embedded Teams with Hannah Ghidey of Etsy
Embedded research teams—where UXRs are dedicated to a single product area—are popular. The proximity to design, product, and engineering stakeholders increases subject...
#164 - UX Lessons from a Decade Researching AI with Jess Holbrook of Microsoft
Much of the conversation around AI in UX involves how it will shape and change researchers' work. Today's guest, Jess Holbrook, who leads UX research for Microsoft AI,...
#163 - Creating Mindful Product Experiences with Jay Vidyarthi of Still Ape
In this episode, Erin and Ben chat with Jay Vidyarthi, designer, author, and founder at Still Ape. Jay is a leading thinker around designing mindful product experience...
#162 - Empowering PwDR Using Research Education with Daniel Gottlieb of Microsoft
Many research activities are completed by non-researchers, but whose work is benefited from user insights. Generally, these folks—designers, PMs, developers, among oth...
#161 - Learn More Faster About Customers with Michael Margolis of GV
This episode is all about learning from customers...early and often. Our guest, Michael Margolis, UX Research Partner at GV (formerly Google Ventures), has made a care...
#160 - Where Design Thinking Went Wrong with Brett Krajewski of Accelerant Research
In 2022, the UX community experienced a series of convulsions: layoffs, reorgs, and reduced budgets. A common thread throughout was accountability: user researchers fa...
#159 - Building Cross-Functional Research Impact with Judy Xu of Salesforce
Creating strong stakeholder relationships is important for UX researchers at any company. Doing this at "enterprise" companies—large organizations with many products a...
#158 - Leading Design as a Researcher with Emily Wurgler of McDonald's
Erin and Carol are joined by Emily Wurgler, Global Director of Experience Design at McDonald's, whose journey has had many moments of evolution and iteration. She star...
#157 - The Future of Design Collaboration with Andrew Hogan of Figma
Few companies are most closely associated with UX design right now than Figma, which not only helps designers get their work done, but serves as a bridge for others to...
#156 - Change Management with Graham Gardner of U.S. Bank
Change is an important and inevitable part of developing as a user experience professional. But what does change look like when it happens at the organizational level?...
#155 - Exploratory Design Research with Will Notini of IDEO
The consulting firm IDEO helped pioneer "design thinking" as a way to create products that better solve customer wants and needs, creating fans. Over 30 years later, t...
#154 - Building the UX Team of Tomorrow with Brad Orego of Webflow
The craft of UX research is at an all-time high. How research leaders structure, staff, and scale their teams is more important than ever. Erin and Carol are joined by...
#153 - Security-Minded UX with Caroline Morchio of Dashlane
In our Season 3 finale, Erin and Carol are joined by Caroline Morchio, Head of UX at Dashlane, a credential management platform. Their conversation explores UX researc...
#152 - The Future of Research in Three Trends with Jo Widawski of Maze
Erin and Carol are joined by Jo Widawski, founder and CEO of Maze, to discuss the major findings from their "Future of User Research" report, which unearthed three tre...
#151 - Improving Your UX Research Efficiency with Auzita Irani of AirBnB
Erin is joined by Auzita Irani, a research manager at AirBnB to discuss being a more efficient user experience researcher. In today's work world, resources—time, budge...
#150 - The Future of UX Research with Judd Antin, Dave Hora, and Christiana Lackner
It's our 150th episode! To celebrate, we brought together three thought leaders for a discussion about UX research's future. Erin and Carol are joined by Judd Antin, D...
#149 - Research Tactics for Designers & PMs with Tyler Wanlass of CommandBar
In this episode, Erin and Carol sit down with Tyler Wanlass, lead product designer at CommandBar, to explore practical strategies for conducting user research without ...
#148 - Connecting Research to Revenue with Claudia Natasia of Riley AI
In this episode, Erin and Carol tackle one form of research impact growing in importance and necessity: revenue. Their guest is Claudia Natasia, co-founder and CEO of ...
#147 - UX Research in Healthcare with Nadyne Richmond
Erin and Carol explore the complexities of healthcare research with Nadyne Richmond, a healthcare design advisor with a background in big tech who pivoted to healthcar...
#146 - Building a UX Research Team From Scratch with Julian Della Mattia of the180
Erin and special co-host Ben Wiedmaier are joined by Julian Della Mattia of the180 for a deep dive into being UX team-of-one. Julian has been the first user researcher...
#145 - Kick-Start Creativity Using Desk Research with Victoria Sakal of Wonder
In this episode, Erin chats with Victoria Sakal, Head of Growth at Wonder, all about desk (or secondary) research—think web searches, checking internal resource librar...
#144 - The Craft of Sample Sizes with Lauren Stern of WHOOP
In this episode, Carol and Erin dive into all things research sample sizes with Lauren Stern. No matter your experience with user research, you'll need to recruit folk...
#143 - Harnessing AI For Better Insights with George Whitfield of MIT and FindOurView
Carol and Erin welcome George Whitfield, an expert in applying AI to the analysis of qualitative data. George discusses the intricate challenges of leveraging language...
#142 - Quantifying Research Impact with Ruby Pryor of Rex
In this episode Carol and Erin are joined by Ruby Pryor, founder of Rex, a consulting firm specializing in UX research and strategic design. They explore the world of ...
#141 - The Chaos Theory of Event Networking with Bryan Dosono of eBay
In this episode of Awkward Silences, Carol and Erin dive into the world of conference networking and planning with Bryan Dosono, a staff UX research lead at eBay known...
#140 - Should You Leave Academia? Advice for Researchers with Joe Stubenrauch
The decision to leave academia can be difficult. Often, it involves giving up a stable career path and a lifetime commitment to a particular field of study. But as Jo...