Have you ever wondered what it's like to usability test a video game? Or what goes on behind the scenes of gaming studios as they prepare for big release dates? In this episode, games user researcher Steve Bromley shares how he got into the field, and what makes games different from traditional user experiences. Steve's Website: gamesuserresearch.com; Steve's Book: ⁠How To Be A Games User Researcher Other websites Steve Mentioned A Theory Of Fun For Game Design (Raph Koster) A Playful Production Process Game Developer Conference Videos NN/g's Free Articles and Videos on Games & Gamification: 10 Usability Heuristics Applied to Video Games (article) Games User Research (article) Video Game Design and UX (video) Gamification in the User Experience (video) Psychology & UX Study Guide (free study guide) NN/g UX Certification Courses (full-day or half-day formats) Persuasive & Emotional Design The Human Mind and Usability

If you ask experienced UX practitioners how to stay user-centric, you’ll inevitably hear something about the importance of customer journeys. However, as teams become more mature in their UX practices, the number of journeys being tracked and analyzed has been growing, sometimes faster than teams can manage, leading to scattered and uncoordinated redesign efforts. In this episode, we hear some tips about customer journey management from Kim Salazar of NN/g and Jochem van der Veer of TheyDo, a customer journey management platform. Learn more about the episode guests: Kim Salazar, Senior UX Specialist at NN/g Jochem van der Veer, Co-Founder & CEO, TheyDo / TheyDo.com Related NN/g courses & reports: Customer-Journey Management (full-day / 2 half-days course) Operationalizing CX: Organizational Strategies for Delivering Superior Omnichannel Experiences (142-page report) Related NN/g articles & videos: The Practice of Customer-Journey Mangement (free article) What is Journey Management? (3 min video)

The UX industry has recently seen what some call "unprecedented" shifts with layoffs and generative artificial intelligence rapidly changing how UX work is done. However, there have been similarly turbulent periods in tech, decades before. Dr. Jakob Nielsen reflects on the changes that have taken place over the near 25 years Nielsen Norman Group has been around, and discusses whether or not generative AI is just a phase or truly the next chapter of UX work. Learn more about Dr. Jakob Nielsen Past keynote speeches by Dr. Jakob Nielsen Topics Covered: 1:45 - Dr. Jakob Nielsen's "origin story" 3:46 - What UX was like during the "dot-com boom" 6:30 - How the UX profession has changed since the "dot-com boom" 8:21 - Generative AI - a phase or the next chapter of UX work? 13:26 - How AI will shift the labor of UX away from pixel-pushing and toward orchestration/editorializing 16:58 - The future of UX: what keeps Dr. Jakob Nielsen inspired 19:34 - Balancing the pressure to build new features vs. fixing existing infrastructures (UX debt) 23:00 - Foundational UX ideologies: who is responsible for a good experience; matching how people actually behave 25:17 - Advice for people new to UX  27:40 - Advice for experienced UX professionals in preparing for a future with AI

With the recent surge in tech layoffs, a downsizing of UX labor means UX research is harder to do, meaning: research needs to be prioritized in really intentional ways. Discount inspection methods like expert reviews and heuristic evaluations can help identify high-priority design issues that need further research and design effort. In this episode, Evan Sunwall offers some insight into how to facilitate and communicate the results of these inspection methods.  Connect with Evan Sunwall on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/esunwall/ Evan's Recommended Further Reading on NN/g: Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics (article) The classic heuristics for effective interaction design used by many UX professionals to evaluate digital experiences. Heuristic Evaluation of User Interface (video) How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation (article)  How to Conduct an Expert Review (article) Other Books: Don't Make Me Think (book) - a very short and easy-to-read primer on usability and its role in creating successful products.

The term artificial intelligence, AI, is having a bit of a boom, with the explosion in popularity of tools like ChatGPT, Lensa, DALL•E 2, and many others. The praises of AI have been equally met with skepticism and criticism, with cautionary tales about AI information quality, plagiarism, and other risks. Susan Farrell, the Principal UX Researcher at mmhmm, shares a bit about her experiences in researching chatbots and AI driven tools, and defines what AI is, what it isn’t, and what teams should consider when implementing AI systems. Susan Farrell's social media: LinkedIn; Mastodon What Susan is working on: mmhmm.app NN/g courses referenced in this episode:  Design Tradeoffs & UX Decision Making (full-day and 2-day course)  Emerging Patterns in Interface Design (full-day and 2-day course)  Recommended Reading to deep dive into artificial intelligence & machine learning:  Age of Invisible Machines - Robb Wilson  The Promise and Terror of Artificial Intelligence - Os Keyes  Becoming a chatbot: my life as a real estate AI’s human backup The Invisible Workforce that Makes AI Possible For Humans Learning Machine Learning  What are large language models (LLMs), why have they become controversial?  On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?  Interested in working for us? Check out our job posting and apply by Jan. 30, 2023.