The Object-Oriented UX Podcast

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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Sondra Eby Eisenstat is a Certified OOUX Strategist and UX Designer at web development agency Oddbird. Miriam Suzanne is a self-described software engineer and artist. She is co-founder at Oddbird, as well as an Invited Expert with the W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium) CSS Working Group where she works with other experts in the field to develop open standards that ensure the long-term growth of the Web. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia, Sondra, and Miriam discuss the adaptability of the ORCA process for teams, the coming innovations of container queries in CSS, and how OOUX facilitates a fruitful, continuous conversation between designers and developers. 

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Samuel Hulick runs User Onboard, where he researches, writes about, and implements successful user onboarding for companies around the world. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Samuel discuss how OOUX helped with a crisis of faith, how there's more than one way to learn to ride a bike, and why the right objects at the right time are the answer to good UX. 

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Cassie Eddy is a UX Designer and Researcher at Health Catalyst in Boston. She is also a Certified OOUX Strategist and active mentor in the OOUX Certification Program. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Cassie discuss learning to code, the information architecture of Crossfit, and how OOUX can help with combining passions in career and life. 

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Harrison Wheeler is a Senior Design Manager at Linkedin and is the host of his own user experience design podcast: Technically Speaking. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Harrison discuss how OOUX provides a chance to take a principled approach to design, why social media websites are like old enterprise software, and how inheritance can be used to build user trust. The script got thrown out the window on this one. Enjoy!

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In this episode of the podcast, Sophia goes solo once again to address a question someone in the OOUX Self-Paced Masterclass Program brought to her from a senior UXer who just didn't see the value of OOUX when information architecture already exists. It's one she's heard more than once from those familiar with IA. Is OOUX just a rebrand of IA that no one asked for and no one needs? 

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In this episode, your host Sophia Prater flies solo to show you how to sell more UX research using Object-Oriented UX—more specifically, the first two steps of the ORCA process. We will talk about how to make your stakeholders and biz folks aware of gaps in the team’s understanding and become more invested in important questions that need to be brought to users.

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Today we have a discussion with an amazing UX designer Duo -- Andrea Neuhoff and Kristen Kite. Andrea is a Certified OOUX Strategist and a Senior Product Designer at Duo. Kristen is a Senior Product Designer at Detroit Labs and has designed products for enterprise users at companies including Duo Security, GE, and Google. In this episode of the podcast, Andrea, and Kristen talk with Sophia about their work together at Duo Security, how they have started bringing OOUX to Duo for a double whammy of complexity wrangling, and how taking all of people's weird behaviors into account helps design better online security products. Enjoy!

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Amanda Worthington is the creator of the UX Portfolio Powerplay course, where she teaches other designers how to use OOUX to build and sustain a portfolio that's uniquely them. She's also the the host of the UX Hustle Podcast and the organizer of the UX Hustle Conference, the world's only UX career conference. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Amanda talk about OOUXing your portfolio and making real connections at the UX Hustle Conference, How everything in your career has its season, and how Amanda leveraged her technical background as a civil engineer with her passion for design to build a new kind of web shop. 

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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 Caroline calls OOUX a power tool for digital design, what it's like to have a user call your system "seamless," and the parallels between OOUX and API design. 

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Imogen Levy is head of digital at Moorfields Eye Hospital. She is an active mentor in the OOUX Forum, and an emerging leader in the OOUX movement. She’s using OOUX to shepherd Moorfields through a true digital transformation. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Imogen discuss how PDFs are bad for accessibility, why OOUX is not waterfall design, and exactly how many times you have to repeat yourself for your message to sink in. 

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Jorge is an independent information architecture consultant who helps companies gain clarity, confidence, and traction. He is the author of “Living in Information," and a coauthor on the fourth iteration of the Polar Bear book. Jorge's podcast, “The Informed Life,” explores how people organize information to get things done. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Jorge discuss why the tension between top-down and bottom-up is the greatest challenge to designers, how to recognize signs that you’re working on a “greedy” product, and why social media is like a meeting that lasts forever. Enjoy!

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Michael Metts and Andy Welfe are the authors of "Writing is Designing," a must-read book on content strategy and UX writing that fits right in with the principles of OOUX. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia, Michael, and Andy discuss why team clarity brings user clarity, how new UX writers should go about developing a company voice, and why communicating trade-offs is a killer skill. Enjoy!

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This episode of the podcast is a replay of episode 19 of the UX Hustle Podcast. We are revisiting this episode because Ahren and Bob will be the featured speakers at the June OOUX Happy Hour Meetup where they will connect the dots between Ontologies, knowledge graphs, and Object-Oriented UX. You'll find the link for the meetup below! Now onto the podcast...

In this episode of the podcast, Sophia, Ahren, and Bob discuss how taxonomies differ from folksonomies, how folksonomies differ from ontologies, and how common vocabularies keep design projects on track.

Ahren Lehnert is a knowledge management professional who has worked across many industries including  marketing, health care, Federal and State government agencies, commercial and e-commerce, geospatial, oil and gas, telecom, and financial services. Bob Kasenchak has worked in business development, product development, and as a taxonomist since 2012. They are both senior taxonomists at Synaptica, an enterprise taxonomy and ontology management software company.

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Jeremy Kieth is the cofounder of Clearleft, a design agency specializing in building resilient, future-proof, backwards compatible, and just super elegant web experiences. He is also the author of "Resilient Web Design," which he has made available for free to all of us through Creative Commons licensing, as well as many other books on super-geeky topics like DOM Scripting, Ajax, and HTML5. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Jeremy discuss how responsive design made the truth about the Internet apparent, why the invisible is hard to prioritize, and what a bad design system means for our end users. Enjoy!

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Sarah Barrett is Principal Information Architecture Manager and Rachel Price is Senior Information Architect at Microsoft. Together they have used OOUX to untangle, among others, the insane complexity of Microsoft's technical library, Microsoft Docs, as well as Microsoft Learn, which provides interactive learning paths and certifications for beginners and pros alike. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia, Sarah, and Rachel discuss how to think like a library scientist, how being conventional can be a virtue, and why accessibility is good for everyone, not just the differently-abled. Enjoy!

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Ren Pope is the Senior Staff Data Modeler and Ontologist at a little company called Etsy. Ren's background is in technical writing, data analysis, and knowledge management. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Ren discuss how to build a taxonomy around cosplay, how information architecture is more like information archaeology, and why it's important to understand the context of meta metadata. 

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Connect with Ren on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rlpope3/

Try CMap: https://cmap.ihmc.us/

Andrew Hinton is the Senior Manager of Design Strategy and Research at Honeywell. He is a seasoned public speaker who has graced the stage at the IA Conference, UX Lisbon, UX Week, and the IA Summit. He is also the author of the must-read information architecture book, "Understanding Context." In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Andrew discuss the meaning of embodied cognition, the pitfalls of being a physical creature in a digital environment, and why sometimes, creating inconsistency can help you be consistent. 

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This is our last episode of 2020! We are revisiting the December 2019 episode with Ben Callahan.

This week and through the end of the year, due to it being the holidays and all that entails, we will be revisiting our most popular, most-OOUXy episodes from the UX Hustle Podcast, the podcast I started back in 2018 and have since handed off to a new Host, Amanda Worthington.

We will start back with new episodes in 2021.

Caroline Sober-James has journeyed from database architect to UX designer to a fellow object-oriented UX evangelist. She’s the UX Director at Acumium in Madison, WI, where she strives to lead her team with “radical candor.” We discuss how leaders can create an environment for innovation and how team members can demand it. We look at how OOUX can help with client meetings as well as debate how OOUX applies to fantasy games, board games, and classic Nintendo. Enjoy!

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Carrie Hane ran her own content strategy firm for five years before joining Palladian Partners as Senior Digital Project Director, where she uses her content structuring super powers to provide Palladian's clients with a unified digital communication strategy. But you may know her from the must-read book she co-authored with Mike Atherton, "Designing Connected Content." In this episode of the podcast, Sophia and Carrie discuss what exactly a content model is, why navigation is the most volatile layer of the content stack, and IA in UX education. 

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What’s up OOUXers, this conversation with Dan mall is bonkers…Dan Mall is one of the leading experts in design systems — he’s the cofounder and creative director at Super Friendly, a design collaborative that brings design system guidance, leadership, and execution to companies like Capital One, Girl Scouts, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, and so many more. He’s the creator of a new design system course, not out yet, but check out the link below to sign up for updates so you can be the first to know about it. Dan and I discuss the personality traits that make a good system designer, how to start a design system project the right way, we debate the pros and cons of “flexible cards” which can lead to what I call masked objects, and we come up with a plan for how OOUXers can fill a needed gap in the design system world…putting components in context and rooting them in the real world valuable objects that users and businesses care about. 

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Today's episode is an audio WORKSHOP that’s going to teach you the basics of OOUX and the ORCA process. If you listened to the first episode, you should have a zoomed-out, big picture Idea of what OOUX is all about. But in this episode, you’ll actually get to practice OOUX! 

NOTE: If you are driving or walking, feel free to keep listening to about the first 25 minutes in which I give an overview of the process and reiterate some of the main OOUX principles. 

Once we get into the exercises you will get SO MUCH MORE out of this if you sit down with a pen and paper and follow along. And if you did this with me while listening to the UX Hustle episode I recorded back in August, it’s definitely not going to hurt to do it AGAIN. Especially if you feel like everything didn't fully click into place. 

Okay, after the intro tunes roll, we will jump right into it. IF you want to know more about OOUX, sign up for the OOUX Newsletter so you can get the inside scoop about upcoming trainings and Cohort 4 of the OOUX Certification, which will start at the beginning of 2021. 

October 20, 2015 was when Sophia's article on OOUX debuted on A List Apart. In this episode of the podcast, Sophia shows you how her philosophy and process have changed since then, how OOUX was forged in the crucible of CNN Election Night 2012, how OOUX can help you speak the same language as your back-end developers, and how noun foraging fits into her ORCA (Objects, Relationships, Calls-to-action, and Attributes) process. Enjoy!

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