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A dive into the weeds on UX systems, information architecture, human psychology, data wrangling, structured content, UX process, and above all simplifying the complex.
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.
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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 in London. 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. 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, 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.
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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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Sophia delivers episode #6 in the ORCA Series: Relationship Requirements. Sophia 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, plus a rule of thumb for recognizing tree systems!
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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.
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What makes a 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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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, OOUX. 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, plus 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.
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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!
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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.
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In this super candid conversation, Joe Natoli and Sophia sit down to talk UX process, sketching, creativity, agile, and how OOUX can fit into to all of the above, "meeting you where you are". We'll give you a look into the new course that Joe and Sophia are launching on April 1st, 2023 — a course that targets the fundamentals of OOUX and can get you rocking and rolling in about a weekend.
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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.
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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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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).
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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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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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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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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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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 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.
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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. 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.
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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 UserOnboard, 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.
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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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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.
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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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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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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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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.
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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.
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In this episode, Sophia, Ahren, and Bob discuss how taxonomies differ from folksonomies, how folksonomies differ from ontologies, and how common vocabularies keep design projects on track.
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In this episode, 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.
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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.
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In this episode, 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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In this episode, 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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Cornel Hillmann is a CG Artist, XR Designer, and Entrepreneur. He is the owner and creative director at Studio.CGArtist.com and Emerging Entertainment and has worked with brands including Panasonic, Jaguar, the Singapore International Film Festival, and other big names.
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In this episode, we are revisiting the December 2019 episode with Ben Callahan. Ben is a design system expert and the founder and president of Sparkbox. At Sparkbox, Ben has created an amazing workplace that facilitates learning, exploring, asking questions, and pet projects.
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Caroline Sober-James has journeyed from database architect to UX designer to a fellow object-oriented UX evangelist. 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.
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In this episode, 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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In this episode, Sophia takes us on an audio walk-through of the "calls-to-action" methodology of her ORCA process. She will guide you through how to get started designing complex systems, how to make a CTA Matrix that's based on real-world objects, and why doing so will pay dividends.
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Dan Mall is one of the leading experts in design systems. In this episode, learn how to start a design system project the right way, the pros and cons of “flexible cards” which can lead to what I call masked objects, and how OOUXers can create a ton of value on a design system team.
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This 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!
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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 and how OOUX was forged in the crucible of CNN Election Night 2012.
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