Designdrives

In this episode we talk about Design Strategy and UX Research. Ross Mitchell is an experienced design leader that gained experience from the automotive field at Ford to the entertainment industry at AT&T as a director of UX Research and Strategy. Gaining experience in both in-house teams and design consultancies: Before his corporate experiences, he was also working at design agencies like RKS Design and served as an Adjunct Professor at CCS. Nowadays he is building WHOA as a Co-founder and Managing Director of the agency which bridges the sectors of research, strategy, innovation and design. During his time leading research and innovation programmes, he experienced industry in change, motion and high competition. Both the automotive field faces challenges with autonomous driving but also during his time at AT&T he experiences the merging business of entertainment, media, and telecommunication. In this podcast, we tap into how to design in industries that are rapidly changing. We cover aspects around Service Design, UX Design and User Research but also how to adjust your process and tools when facing new industries and challenges. In addition, we dive into the value of design and the increasing importance of it when solving complex problems.

This episode was recorded before Ross left AT&T.

You can learn more about Whoa here:

In this episode, we talk with Shan He from Uber, the founding member of Uber’s data visualisation team. Combing backgrounds in architectural generative design  (gained in China) in the physical space with generative software design and data visualisation (learned at MIT) she created a new field that becomes increasingly important. By using geo-data and design visualisation tools she is able to design eye-opening visualisations that help in the communication of scientific findings and enable better decision making for cities and governments. Based on the data from Uber's global user in over 600 cities the visualisations can show when and how people move in the environment. In addition, her team developed an open source tool called  “Kepler.gl” which gives everyone access to these powerful visualisations tools. Furthermore, the data is empowering research and science to easily create stunning infographics and presentations out of their data. For cities and urban planners its crucial to understand how people move, if they drive alone or with multiple people and understand citizen behaviour in general. Shan and her team work closely with cities to foster better and more strategic urban design. A talk exploring the intersection of design, data and cities of the future.

In this episode, we talk with Joey Zeledón who just founded his own Design Studio. Prior to that, he was Design Principle at Steelcase, driving the intersection of spacial healthcare experience and furniture design. He is also the author of the book “Touchy/Feely” and Co-founder of Mothership. Before joining Steelcase Joey gained experience at Smart Design in New York, Continuum and even in footwear design through his time at New Balance. In the episode, we pick from his wide range of experiences ranging from Industrial Design and beyond - pushing innovation in a large range of areas like kitchen products, consumer electronics, furniture and others. Through experiences at Smart Design he also explored and researched new bold questions in design for example “How design can inform our food?” and how design can foster greater food decisions? A topic we specifically focused on was “emotional ergonomics” - how it does foster empathy for human-centred and importantly inclusive design.