Why Ux? Podcast

Katja is Creative Director at EGGS Design, with almost 20 years of experience she has worked across the disciplines of UX, IA, IXD and Service Design for agencies such as Fjord in London, Kontrapunkt and now EGGS Design in Copenhagen. Since working with the first team of Index:Award in 2005, sustainability and using design and innovation to improve the world has been a growing focus area.   Thanks to Nora Horn, Simon Dybdal and Preely with the creation of this episode. 

Jared Spool was there from the beginning, or rather he was there from before the beginning. As he says in this episode “I didn’t get started in UX - UX got started around me”. And this is not overstating it. Jared is one of the most influential figures in UX, usability and product design, and his footprints can be seen from everything between the arrow keys of computer keyboards to the often repeated quote “everyone is a designer”.    Thank Preely, Nora Horn & Simon Dybdal with the creation of this episode. 

Xavier was born in the French Alps, and even though he is now living in Denmark - one of the flattest countries in the world - he kept his love for mountains. This is evident in his startup Whympr, which is an app for mountain and outdoor activities. On top of that he works as an external consultant for Nordea were his mission is to ensure consistent and quality UX through communication and atomic design.   Thank Preely, Nora Horn & Simon Dybdal with the creation of this episode. 

Equipped with the ambitions of becoming a cartoonist Glenn joined the Kolding Designskole. Little did he know, that the universe had other plans for him. The emerging technology of CD-ROMs propelled Glenn into a successful career path of interactive design and UX, where he has been working with a broad range of users and a broad range of products. A lot has happened since he started as the first interaction designer in Lego history, until the present where he designs med-tech at Radiometer. Glenn believes the future designer will be a designer. Not a UI, UX, digital or a “whatever”-designer. The silos will disintegrate, to make way for a more holistic perspective and approach to product design. Thanks to Preely, Nora Horn & Simon Dybdal for help making this episode. 

Flemming has always been interested in computers but hated how horrible they were to use. Now he starts his day at 5 am each morning, to take care of his job as a contractor for the Chinese Huawei. Here he uses his UX problem solving to make digital change for Huawei’s large clients. This change is not just about using new technologies, but how to build up a business model around said technologies Design thinking is getting more and more widespread, which means you no longer need designers for basic websites and basic applications. Flemming, therefore, foretells a future, where designers will face more competition, and they will need to move up the value chain and brace increasingly complex problems. Thanks to our sponsor Preely, Nora Horn and Simon Dybdal for their support in making this episode.

Loba van Heugten has more than 15 years experience within UX. Specialized in Design Research and Service Design the curiosity to understand the motivation and context of the end-users is a key driver. It is all about turning complex and detailed user insights into the business outcome that will support the strategic goals of the business. Loba collaborates pro-actively with stakeholders to funnel insights directly into the development processes often through wireframes to frame the dialogue in a tangible direction. Loba’s international experience on user research and UX/design has given her a solid foundation. She taught for 2 years at university, she worked for 2 years in an international agency in London, she worked for 8+ years in-house and 2+ years as Head of UX and insights. She has worked for big international companies such as Microsoft and Nordea (large Nordic bank). 
 She is currently working in a big pension company applying Design Thinking methodologies and presenting the research she did on chatbo

Educated from the Technical University Delft in the Netherlands, Anne has a love for Business Applications and UX. Visa availability and Microsoft brought her to Denmark. Today she’s at Danske Bank, trying to make the banks' visual expression cohesive across departments, and improving the experience for business owners.

Hans is really one of the old school UX’ers and back in the days, he was a Usability Tester. As the industry has grown he has grown with it. Today he sees himself as a toolmaker and as head of Product Design at Milestone System he’s the frontrunner of making his teams understand their users in order to build the right product. He has high standards which shine through in his dedication to empowering his users through his work.

Jimmy is not by far the classical UX designer, he’s a full on anthropologist working in the design space, or more so the product space.He found his way into design through an article that described how the company Red Associates used the social sciences to solve complex problems for some of the largest companies in the world. He spend a couple of years at Designit, but the constant focus on speed, being at an agency, wasn’t for him. Today you’ll find him at Maersk, a company that needs to rethink how they’re doing business if they want to survive. Here Jimmy is doing research to stop bad ideas for being executed. He compares research with Tetris. Usually designers think about the falling block, Jimmy is thinking of the landscape the piece is falling into.He believes UX designers should take more responsibility as decision makes and not just be skilled craftsmen.

Catherine grew up with a pencil in her hand. The born visual designer. She studied Industrial Design in Paris and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts through Erasmus. She then came back to Copenhagen to learn Glass design and blowing techniques. Through a student job at a strategy consulting company, her eyes opened to User Research and as a graduate, the transition into, what we today call UX, came naturally. Today she works at GenieBelt and deals with the realities of time constraints and of agile methodologies, how to work with and manage others and make the best of it in a company with high ambitions. She sees herself not just working with pieces but with the entire journey. For the future, she strives to improve her management skills, because although we understand our users, design management is quite a different cup of tea.

Rasmus Landgreen started his journey 16 years ago placing his first pixels online, doing e-commerce solutions for small businesses. After a couple of years of scrambling, he entered the Danish Design Schools interaction design programme where he stayed on for 3 years. Learning a bit about digital design, but mostly learning that graphic design and digital design are two different worlds. Through random job opportunities, he ended up starting his path into usability design in 2005. In 2007 he joined Issuu, an online publishing platform where he had a chance to put his skills to a test and design for millions of platform users. After Issuu, Rasmus joined Podio - another great startup story from Copenhagen. After this a years of freelancing - back in the publishing space working with Zetland, Egmont and DR. And then a change of scenery - through Hello Group, his interest for finance and large scale companies got sparked. Today, he's working with Nordea building E-Markets. A platform where large corporates can ma

Kim Johannesen is the co-founder and managing director at a small frontend-consultancy called Shift. They have three core areas they focus on: scalability, performance and accessibility. Kim calls himself a failed designer as he always wanted to be one, but didn't have the skills so instead, he turned to frontend development. Kim started his career in 2000 when he got a job in England as a front-end developer, but he was always drawn towards reading books and blogs about user experience and information architecture. He was always interested in design, so he became a bridge between creative and development departments. Kim has always been an advocate for invisible design and simplicity, always trying to question fancy ideas and directions. Check out his SprUX (Spreadsheet UX) here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10b4TyizIZ5_4XnYyuofzI8FudCkcH2HorXR96emgUDI/edit#gid=0

Jens Poder started working at Radio Denmark int 1996 when he was 24 as an intern. He was doing all sorts of jobs from making posters to editing websites. Jens used to study literature and art and wanted to work with cultural journalism but then web took off and in few years he ended up sitting in editorial staff for DR.dk, helping to put the dr.dk on the first content management system, and transforming the company from being very TV oriented to more internet focused. 10 year ago, Jens joined the company Peytz & Co, where he is a partner and director of Innovation. Now in his day to day work Jens is focusing on managing and creating process and interacting with customers. He had a chance to work building virk.dk, municipal websites and other higher impact projects. Jens believes that UX designer job is a craft, not an art. He believes in creative processes as a way of solving problems.

Lena Egede started her journey wanting to be a journalist, failing to be accepted to the School of Journalism, living out her dreams at university while working as a journalist, realizing that journalism was not her and changing her life to pursue being a UX researcher. As she says, the underlying dream for both professions is still the same - make the complicated seem simple. Lena calls herself "UX consultant" - as people often think she delivers pixel-perfect design when they hear “UX designer”. She is known for running workshops at the end of her projects, to show her clients on how to embrace the knowledge found through user research. Lena runs her own consultancy at https://uxfactor.dk You can find Lena on twitter at https://twitter.com/lenaegede

Casper Klenz-Kitenge is a co-founder and creative director of Pilot, a digital product studio. He spends his days on client work and on small personal projects that have a big impact. He calls himself a 90 % self-taught designer which never has been an obstacle in his career. He defines himself as being a generalist designer.   One of the inside product of Pilot is called Wallo where now they try to elevate upcoming artists. For the past few years Casper has been focusing and has been a champion for Jobs to be done framework. Slides to privat notes.   Find Casper on Twitter and dribbble @cabgfx

Helle Martens is what we would call the first generation UX Designer. With a degree in Mechanical Engineering she landed her first job in a tech company which led into UX design. Today she is a freelance designer with a passion for usability testing and wireframing. She runs the Copenhagen based community UX Forum CPH and 2 yearly conferences. One on Behavioral Psychology and one on UX Design. You can stay in the loop here http://www.uxconfcph.dk/ Find Helle on Twitter @snetramelleh

Aske Sørensen is Lead Designer at the startups Practio and sikkervaccination.dk.  He has a background in Graphic Design but moved into UX design by reading about it on Medium. Being a part of an all-male team with a product for women (a birth control app) Aske have done a lot of user testing, empathizing with his user and today his female friends come to him for advice regarding birth control. He is a dedicated Sketch user and excited about what the future will bring, especially inspired by Airbnb and their work on making sketching (pen and paper) more interactive and actually tying it directly into design components. Find Aske on Twitter @askesorensen // Helena Levison

Martin Sandholt is a Frontend Designer at Momondo, with a father who tried to teach him C++ as a child, a strong graphical eye, he graduated as a Multimedia Designer. He have startup experience but is now in product design. You might know him in the local UX community where he with my co-host Dovile runs the UX/UI Design Meetup. He sees himself as a generalist, going through the full journey of the product. He makes order out of chaos, he’s structured and the sense of making something that's what needs to work from a functional perspective as well. He sees that UX and frontend is merging more now a days and belives we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to channels. We’ll need to keep a close eye on our users and which platforms they’re on and how to communicate to them.Martin is asking for speakers to share their knowledge at his UX/UI Design Meetup.Find @MartinSandholt at TwitterMomondo is a free, independent and inspirational global travel search site comparing billions of cheap flights, hotels