The UX Level-Up

In this ninth installment of the ORCA Series, Sophia kicks off the Prioritization round with Object Prioritization. Tune in as she shares how this step can bring clarity to your design process and your project backlog — plus a personal story on tackling creative chaos with compassion and strategy.

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In this episode, Sophia gets real about the tension between OOUX in theory vs. the messy reality of the real world. Learn how to ask those jaw-dropping, scope-shifting “why?” questions without annoying leadership. She breaks it down into four pro-level steps so you can bring more clarity, alignment, and confidence to your work.

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Frameworks don’t kill creativity — they set it free.

In this episode, we're breaking down why UX designers who jump into UI too soon miss the real opportunity for innovation.

I’ll show you how ORCA (Objects, Relationships, Calls-to-Action, Attributes) gives you real material to build with — fueling true creativity, better ideas, and a serious competitive edge.

🎧 Tune in to rethink your brainstorming, unleash deeper innovation, and start sketching systems, not just screens.

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In this more personal solo episode, Sophia shares how she uses OOUX to help her learn and understand complicated things faster, why it's important to budget for and invest in self improvement, plus why OOUX is great for helping you step away from the screens to embody what you're trying to understand.

The UX job market is rough. Veterans are being laid off, juniors are struggling to find jobs, and yet, digital experiences are clunky and getting worse. What gives?

In this raw and honest solo-episode, Sophia explores why UX has been set up to fail — why big problems remain unsolved, and why leadership often undervalues UX work. You'll hear how we've been pushed into pixel-pushing and spackling over the cracks of complexity instead of tackling structural solutions. And why that's not good enough anymore.

But there’s hope. UX can evolve, and we can take back our craft. Discover the Five Core Level-Ups that will empower you to redefine your role and bring deeper meaning into your work.

If you are ready for a deep dive into Sophia’s practical how-to, Join our  90-minute, totally free training: The UX Level-Up. You'll learn 20 actionable strategies to start leveling up immediately—yes, right after the training.

In this solo episode of the podcast, Sophia discusses, "AI: A Guide for Thinking Humans" by Melanie Mitchell professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Are world models the answer to creating human-like intelligence in AI? What are the arguments for and against world models in training AI? And can OOUX help in creating these models?

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As president of Catbird Content, Torrey Podmajersky helps teams solve business and customer problems using UX and content. She has written inclusive and accessible consumer and professional experiences at Google, OfferUp, and Microsoft, and now for clients of Catbird Content. She wrote the best-selling Strategic Writing for UX, and teaches at schools and conferences in North America and Europe.

In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Torrey talk about why people tend to be biased toward stories they understand, how facilitating with sticky notes helps level the playing field for ideas, and how Torrey used OOUX to untangle the “spaghetti” of requirements, system objects, and team vernacular at a large company we all know.

Raktim Chatterjee is a Certified OOUX Strategist and the Lead UX Consultant at Xebia, a global IT consultancy. In this episode, Sophia and Raktim talk about how to get buy-in on OOUX with stakeholders by reviewing headaches from previous projects through an OOUX lens and by meeting people where they are, why OOUX becomes exponentially beneficial when all team members know the fundamentals, and just how much OOUX it's possible to do in just 45 minutes. This is a great conversation on the nuts and bolts of getting started with OOUX at work. Enjoy!

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The Self-Paced OOUX Masterclass is coming off the shelf at midnight on Friday, September 27, 2024.

In this solo episode of the podcast, Sophia talks about why she's taking the course off the market, when it will be back, and why you should get this "life-changing," "mind blowing," "career-saving" course today before it's gone, plus two big lessons she's learned over 10 years of entrepreneurship!

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In this solo episode of the podcast, Sophia asks, what is the point of OOUX? What are the things people get out of OOUX? Sophia outlines the three glorious transformations that OOUX provides to the weary UX professional. This podcast is for people who are wondering if they should dive deeper into the world of Object-Oriented UX.

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There are big changes coming to the world of OOUX. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia talks about bumping the ORCA process up from 15 to 16 steps. She also discusses the upcoming Cohort 10, which will mark the tenth anniversary of OOUX! And to celebrate that milestone she has devised four new bonuses for this cohort. Plus, why we will be putting the Self-Paced OOUX Masterclass on pause in the coming month.

Kate Redfern is a Senior UX Consultant at Manifesto, a digital experience agency that works with clients in the non-profit and government space. Philippe Fara is the Digital Experience Manager for Renfrewshire Council. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia, Kate, and Philippe discuss using the ORCA process to raise user competency scores for the Renfrewshire Council website, how OOUX makes maintaining digital content easier, and why OOUX is a good investment for companies and governments.

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Will Poole is Head of User Experience at Kyan, a digital product agency that specializes in strategy, design, and engineering, expertly crafting digital experiences to solve complex problems and drive innovation. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Will talk about Will's journey to finding OOUX, the challenges of bringing OOUX to Kyan, and using ORCA to design continuing ed and personal development for Premier League coaches.

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Ghyslain Olier is the Design Director at Content Square and has 15 years of experience in product design. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Ghyslain discuss using OOUX to organize your team, why your O's, R's, C's, and A's are your competitive advantage, plus thoughts on OOUX and AI!

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Abby Covert is an information architect, writer and community organizer with two decades of experience helping people make sense of messes. She is the author of the 2014 book, How to Make Sense of Any Mess, "a book to teach IA to everybody," and more recently, Stuck, Diagrams Help, a book for teaching the art of diagramming. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Abby talk about letting go of perfectionism in dealing with tech debt, the power of language and why words are hard, plus why diagramming is a high order skill.

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In this solo episode of the podcast, Sophia talks about the coming artificial intelligence revolution and how it could work with OOUX. She discusses AI world models and how OOUX provides a framework for training AIs. Plus she shares all the fun AI/OOUX material coming down the pipeline, including Zoe, the OOUX bot (currently in development) and a meetup on May 16 3-5PM EST, "OOUX for AI and AI for OOUX."

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Elena Haskins is a Certified OOUX Strategist and product designer that helps design software for SaaS startups that make users feel effortlessly at home. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Elena discuss how dog owners can teach clients about cardinality, why OOUX helps you ask the questions no one else is asking, and how system objects can be used for team therapy.

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Dan Mall is a creative director, designer, founder, and entrepreneur. He currently runs Design System University: curriculum & community to support how you design at scale. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Dan ask the question, are design systems folks and OOUX folks the same folks?

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In this eighth installment of the ORCA Series, Sophia wraps up the Requirements round with Attribute Requirements. Tune in to hear Sophia give a primer on deeper level requirements gathering, plus what sorts of questions generally get asked during the Requirements round.

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In this solo episode of the podcast, Sophia gives a great bird's eye view of the ORCA process, outlining each step, how it can stand alone on its own, and what the main "tripping point" is for each part of the process. Plus, a teaser for the advanced training, March 1, 2024. Buckle up and grab something to take notes!

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Kristin Ouellette Muskat is a Certified OOUX Strategist who is the Principal User Experience Designer at Coforma, and has worked in the government space for years. In this episode of podcast, Sophia and Kristin discuss why it's important to work at a sustainable pace, yak shaving in government work, how working in government differs from private companies, plus OOUXing the law.

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Greetings OOUXers! In this New Years episode of the podcast, we welcome Content Designer, Information Architect, and Certified OOUX Consultant, Karen Hewell. Sophia and Karen discuss the power of naming your feelings and thoughts, the difference between feelings and thoughts, mapping your polarizing traits can make you more confident, & how to get started OOUXing your life. This is a fantastic discussion. We hope you enjoy.

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In this seventh installment of the ORCA Series, Sophia brings some holiday cheer while covering CTA Requirements. Revisiting the Santa Delivery App from ORCA Series #6, Relationship Requirements, she explores the four ways you can upgrade your basic user stories, plus how to use AI to help you fill in the gaps you might have missed.

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In this festive episode of the podcast, Sophia delivers episode #6 in the ORCA Series: Relationship Requirements. Sophia summarizes & expands on "My Cat Saving Fire Department," the power tool for analyzing object relationships. Using the example of Santa delivering presents, she illustrates how to apply this tool to understand relationships between objects like buildings, kids, and gifts. Sophia also discusses the importance of recognizing tree systems and provides a rule of thumb for identifying them effectively.

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In this fifth installment of the ORCA Series, Sophia discusses Object Requirements, how to skip ORCA steps & loop back to them as needed, as well as ways to customize the ORCA sprint, plus the potential use of artificial intelligence in generating object guides.

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In this fourth installment of the ORCA Series, Sophia discusses the 15 attributes that you'll want to consider for every single object in your system. Think about this like a gut check or a question guide for each object. Plus, a totally free PDF guide version of this podcast outlining these 15 attributes

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We UXers need to fill in the skills in the messy middle of the double diamond design process — synthesis, system design, and information architecture. The ability to solve problems here is what makes a high-value UX designer…a UX designer that gets the job, keeps the job, and gets promoted. So what makes that UXer high-value? In this solo episode of the podcast, Sophia outlines the nine traits that a "high-value" UX Designer should have.

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In this third installment of the ORCA Series, Sophia discusses why objects aren’t more important than all the other parts of a system but are essential to understanding the system, plus she gives 8 tips for CTA discovery!

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Richard Gower is Vice President (Computing, Data Science & Technology) at DeLoach Engineering Science, PLLC & was the first member of Cohort 8 of The Object-Oriented UX Masterclass Certification to become a Certified OOUX Strategist. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia & Richard discuss what it was like when object-oriented programming was invented, why "legacy" has one meaning in life & another in software, & why we've kind of been using the word "inheritance" wrong this whole time.

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Kamil Van Buuren is a Digital Experience Design Team Leader at IKEA, With a focus on IKEA's co-worker & employee experiences. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia & Kamil discuss when to give your team a heavy versus a light dose of OOUX, using OOUX to quickly gain domain knowledge at a new job, plus how to more efficiently divide & conquer on a complicated project.

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Allie Ofisher is a UX Consultant & Certified OOUX Strategist who focuses on information architecture, user research, & of course, Object-Oriented UX. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia & Allie discuss running an ORCA Sprint for the Church of Latter Day Saints, how best to teach the process to stakeholders who might not have a design background, as well as future plans for implementing future ORCA Sprints.

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Caitlin Steele is the Experience Design Manager at Jira & Liam Greig is Head of Design at Confluence, both previously were at Trello. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia, Liam, & Caitlin discuss the aftermath of an OOUX Design Sprint at Trello, how maybe OOUX isn't for everyone, & strategies for bringing OOUX to a big organization.

Ewelina Nowakowska is a Certified OOUX Strategist and is the Director of UI/UX Design & Development at American Reading Company. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia & Ewelina discuss the ways in which OOUX is like mental yoga practice, how ORCA helps teams work faster, plus some exciting innovations that may be on the horizon from OOUX headquarters.

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In this episode of the podcast, Sophia explains eight ways to level up your system modeling skills, plus diagramming The Church of Latter Day Saints!

Chase Roberts is the Senior Content designer at Chewy.com and has worked as a senior content designer in the fintech world with Global 500 banks, like Capital One and BBVA, as well as at startups like Wealthfront and Relief App. In this episode of the podcast Sophia and Chase discuss using Object-Oriented UX to onboard at Chewy.com, creating new objects at Wealthfront, how OOUX fits in with other design methodologies, plus how you can get started with OOUX in your organization. We nerded out in this one. Enjoy!

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In this episode of the podcast, Sophia talks to the VP of Design and Research at HelloFresh — Jake Zukowski. They discuss how a designer on his team started sneaking OOUX through the backdoor into their design meetings, they debate about the difference between a Product Manager and a UX Designer, and they talk about how PMs can bring OOUX to their teams. It's a great conversation and we hope you enjoy!

This is a story about finding a path from struggle to satisfaction and from frustration to way more fun. In yet another solo episode (we promise we’ve got some interviews coming up!), Sophia goes way back to her childhood, high school, college days, and early UX career to make sense of the current state of OOUX and ORCA. Sophia gets into the frustrations of designing in the dark, shares a few juicy life lessons, and reveals the early principles that make up the foundation of her career — and the movement she’s built. 

In this episode of the podcast, Sophia kicks off the first in a 15-part series on her ORCA (Objects, Relationships, CTAs, and Attributes) process. This first installment will cover the process of Noun Foraging. Learn Sophia's 10 hot tips for getting started with noun foraging. Plus, how artificial intelligence can help you do the work, and how noun foraging might not be just for nouns. Enjoy!

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In this first episode of 2023, Sophia lays out her findings after successfully rolling out the ORCA Sprint envisioned in episode 033 from last season. She talks about manifesting the ORCA Sprint from concept to deliverable, what worked and what didn't work (and what can probably be skipped) while running the first ORCA Sprint, and why ending Day 2 of the ORCA Sprint with a nav flow is guaranteed to blow people's minds. 

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In this solo episode of the podcast (and final episode of this season), Sophia talks about a new concept called "The ORCA Sprint." A week-long OOUX journey teams can take to tackle their projects head-on with the methodology of ORCA (tackling objects, relationships, calls-to-action, and attributes). Sophia will take you through each day of the ORCA Sprint schedule going step by step with recommended tools and templates included. And she's looking for feedback! We recommend you listen to this episode in front of your computer so that you can follow along and take notes. 

Following this episode, the OOUX Podcast will be going on hiatus until the fall. 

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Keith Rich and Anthony Gallo join us from Think Company, a bespoke UX and software firm out of Philadelphia. Anthony, the "engineer" of Think Company, began his career in system administration. He took learning how things work "under the hood" to a new level when he later became a self-taught developer. Keith, the "midfielder" at Think Company, comes from Pharma advertising and is passionate about prototyping new ideas and bridging the gaps between design and development.

In this episode of the podcast, Sophia chats with Keith and Anthony about how they discovered OOUX, how they use it at Think Company, and what it means to "dev-ign."

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Samuel Hulick runs UserOnboard where he researches, writes about, and implements successful user onboarding for companies around the world. In this episode, Sophia and Samuel chat about Value Paths and how they hone in on the deeper value of our products. Listen as they lay this lens over a medical prescription app design challenge, the Headspace onboarding experience, and even OOUX.com's offerings.

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Caroline Sober-James is the Director of UX at Acumium, where she and her team have successfully instituted OOUX to great success. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Caroline discuss why designers should cultivate empathy toward developers, how to be "a designer devs swoon over," and how quickly Caroline's conversations with developers turn into "OOUX lovefests."

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Scott Kubie is "a designer who writes." He's the author of "Writing for Designers," a must-read for anyone who writes, and the brain behind "Content Ecosystem Mapping," a visual way to represent your content reality—what you have and where it is. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Scott discuss is-ness versus ought-ness, the rhetorical nature of creating a content ecosystem, plus how exactly one goes about making a content ecosystem map. 

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Lou Rosenfeld needs no introduction. If you are listening to this podcast, you have most likely read or are aware of the Polar Bear book he co-wrote, or one of the many other design books published by his company, Rosenfeld Media, or have attended one of his many excellent IA conferences. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Lou discuss why portals should be banned, what precisely is the definition of "moment prison," and why we shouldn't get emotional about our professional metaphors. 

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Steve Smith is a software engineer, a UXer, and a serial entrepreneur. His early company, Ordered List, was acquired by GitHub and after a long stint as a product designer at GitHub, we met when we were both consulting to NineLabs. He is the founder and lead designer at Box Out Designs, which is basically Canva for the sports industry. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Steve discuss what designers and developers have in common with potters and woodworkers, which programming language is best for OOUXers who want to learn some code, and the ins and outs of OOUXing a whisky. Enjoy!

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As you probably know, Brad Frost is the author of "Atomic Design," the creator of pattern lab, and a design systems advocate and educator. He writes front end code, writes about writing code, and consults to companies looking to create successful, effective design systems. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Brad discuss how technology is like a river, why it's important for everyone on a project to have a shared language, and how design systems are like furniture parts. 

If you like this conversation, make sure to scroll back and listen to the first three episodes of the podcast. I’ve got some introduction episodes as well as a conversation with Dan Mall, which as you might expect, compliments this episode nicely. As a huge fan of the atomic design philosophy and brad frost himself, I am super excited to share this conversation with you!

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