Designing Agentive Technology

Advances in narrow artificial intelligence make possible agentive systems that do things directly for their users (like, say, an automatic pet feeder). They deliver on the promise of user-centered design, but present fresh challenges in understanding their unique promises and pitfalls. Designing Agentive Technology provides both a conceptual grounding and practical advice to unlock agentive technology’s massive potential.

Figure It Out

Information is easy. Understanding is hard.

From incomprehensible tax policies to confusing medical explanations, we’re swamped with information that we can’t make sense of. Figure It Out shows us how to transform information into better presentations, better meetings, better software, and better decisions. So take heart: under the guidance of Anderson and Fast, we can, in fact, figure it out—for ourselves and for others.

Who this book is for

• Mid-career professionals who are ready to think more critically about how they work with information.
• Product Managers, Software Engineers, Project Managers, Content Strategists, Product Strategists.

Design for Care

Healthcare is constantly evolving, with ever increasing complexity and costs presenting huge challenges for policy making, decision making, and system design. Design for Care presents a sweeping overview of the design issues facing healthcare and shows how designers can work with practice professionals, patients, caregivers, and other stakeholders to make a positive difference. Case studies, design methods, and leading-edge research illuminate emerging opportunities and provide inspiration for designing better services.

Communities of Practice for Civic Design (Videoconference)

At the April Civic Design Community call, hear from new community curator Kara Kane. She shares her experience scaling and leading the UK government’s user-centered design (UCD) communities and International Design in Government community while working at the Government Digital Service.

Kara talks about how communities of practice are central to the transformation of public services. The communities she developed built design capability, aimed to create a culture of equity and inclusion and were core to developing and delivering standards and guidance for government.

Advanced Concept Testing Approaches To Guide Product Development and Business Decisions

Learn about the concept testing methodology and various approaches available, when to use them, the types of decisions they can support, and the process to conduct good concept testing with mixed methodologies in mind.

Communication: Innovative techniques for making your voice heard [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]

Insights wither and die when they gather dust on a shelf. Join us as we workshop innovative communication practices that ensure the voice of the user is recognized and acted upon at senior levels within the organization. In this session, our speakers explore strategies that extend beyond traditional tools like presentations, readouts, and workshops. Let’s work together to make insights meaningful and actionable!

Attend all of our Advancing Research community workshops

Each free virtual workshop is made up of panelists who will share short provocations on engaging ideas to discuss as a group, as well as a leader in our field to moderate. If you’re looking for discussions that challenge the status quo and can truly advance research, look no further than our workshop series. (P.S. We’ll be drawing most of our Advancing Research 2025 conference speakers from those who present at upcoming workshops—so tune in for a sneak peek of what’s to come from #AR2025!)

Creating a More Impactful Business While Still Feeling Like a Designer with Ellen Chisa

Have you ever felt like the product people want to move too fast? You realize that speed is important, but the quality of the product is going to suffer and the results are going to disappoint.

Or have you ever wished you had a seat at the table during the initial strategy sessions of a new project, rather than being brought in mid-stream?
Do you feel intimidated when talking to the folks on the business and finance side of your organization?

If so, this episode is for you. Ellen Chisa has a background in engineering and an MB. She is a founder, venture capitalist, and partner at boldstart ventures. In short, she has to care about the business side of things. But she also cares about user-oriented product design, and she wants the voices of those in the design space to be heard.

The best place to start, she asserts, might be by listening and learning. Ellen encourages designers to familiarize themselves with their organization’s business models and financials. If you’re feeling squirmy about that prospect, Ellen lays out a workable approach that will put both you and the business analyst at ease.

Ellen’s goal is to help you create more business impact while still feeling like a designer. Ellen will be the opening keynote at the November 29 Design in Product virtual conference.

What you’ll learn from this episode:
– About Ellen Chisa’s background, her current position, and the contribution she’ll make at the Design in Product Conference 2023
– Where Ellen sees the future going—combining APIs with generative AI
– Why designers will benefit from learning about the business and financial side of their organization
– How a designer can approach a business person with ease and curiosity
– A strategy for getting a seat at the table for the initial strategy sessions of a project

Quick Reference Guide
[0:00:20] Introduction of Ellen Chisa and Design in Product Conference
[0:02:22] The double diamond approach to design
[0:04:09] Potent combinations of design tools
[0:05:02] Ellen looking ahead at where technology will go
[0:07:08] Creating more business impact while still feeling like a designer
[0:09:45] How to get a financial toolkit for designers
[0:12:08] Accessible metrics for non-business people
[0:17:32] Design Ops Summit, October 2-6, 2023
[0:19:02] Feeling like a designer and building a coalition
[0:21:12] How to slow the cadence
[0:23:04] Is it better to focus on revenue and growth or derisking?
[0:25:09] Advice for those who feel reserved about approaching others
[0:27:06] Ellen’s gift for listeners

Taking Notes and Nurturing Your Knowledge Garden with Jorge Arango

Jorge Arango is an Information architect, author, and educator, and he’s written a new book, Duly Noted, about the age-old practice of notetaking.

If you’re like me, you’ve been taking notes since your school days. Back then, we used notebooks, a Trapper Keeper, and sticky notes – anything that could help us ace a test, remember important tidbits, and consolidate ideas. Notes are an extension of the mind. But it was always a headache to organize them, synthesize them, and recall them at the right time.

Enter the digital age – which tried to improve on the humble art of notetaking, but apps like Notes and Stickies tried to replicate digitally what we were using in the real world. Newer apps like Obsidian let go of real-world metaphors by utilizing three principles: shorter notes, connecting your notes, and nurturing your notes to build a knowledge garden that will serve you for the rest of your life.

If you bring value to the world through your thinking, you have the responsibility to look after your thinking apparatus. Duly Noted will augment, magnify, and extend your capacity to think well. Externalizing your mental processes is one of the most powerful means we have to think better. If used well, the humble note will help you be a better thinker and a more effective human.

What you’ll learn from this episode:
– A history of notetaking tools
– Why notetaking is a personal endeavor
– How digital notetaking tools have evolved
– About Jorge’s new book and how, upon reading it, you just might become a better thinker and increase your effectiveness

Quick Reference Guide
[0:00:12] Introduction of Jorge and his books
[0:01:18] Introduction of Jorge’s new book on taking notes and creating a knowledge garden, Duly Noted
[0:09:47] Books that will make you a better knowledge worker
[0:14:14] Design in Product Conference
[0:15:35] Managing knowledge with computers
[0:26:03] Knowledge as a garden
[0:28:09] On tools for nurturing a knowledge garden
[0:33:08] How Jorge uses AI with Obsidian
[0:36:37] Jorge’s gift for listeners

If you can design an app, you can design a community

What if we applied our experience design and research skills to a new domain: designing communities?

Historically, UX hasn’t paid attention to community as a solution space. And yet… at a business level: products, brands and creators build community to deepen their bonds with users and customers. At an organisation level: the best teams are modelled on communities. At a personal level: community brings meaning to our world, in our neighbourhoods and our personal interests.

In this session, we’ll explore what’s involved in creating and sustaining healthy communities. We’ll draw on the wealth of knowledge in fields as diverse as economics, network theory, social work and the design of cities, and on case studies of community efforts like Burning Man, Parkrun and Meetups.

At the end, you’ll have a good idea of how you might apply your skills to creating communities, whether in your organization, your brand, or your life outside of work. We’ll introduce our toolkit, and show you how you could get involved in our project.

Finally…let’s acknowledge that many people in UX are demoralised about their work right now. They’re in roles that underutilise their skills, they’re feeling undervalued, or are working on products they don’t love. Using your skills to build community might be just the change you need.

The Beautiful Mess of Product Development with John Cutler

Today’s interview is just a taste of what you’ll learn at Rosenfeld’s upcoming Design in Product conference—featuring John Cutler’s closing keynote. John is the senior director of product management at Toast, a doodler, a former band member, a UX researcher, and business analyst. He’s also the prolific writer behind “The Beautiful Mess, a Substack newsletter with over 36,000 subscribers, where he writes about cross-functional product management—especially the messy parts.

As someone who likes “messy, creative endeavors” and building things with other people, John enjoys unpacking the complicated parts of collaboration, getting to the heart of messes, and finding a way forward involves much more than identifying patterns.

John finds that each person’s frame or perspective is only one of many. This is one reason the relationship between product and design is a complicated ecosystem, and the whole system—not just a part—needs to evolve together.
In an effort to reach consensus across teams, John notes that it’s easy to fall into the alignment trap where the so-called alignment is fragile and where consensus becomes more valued than a true solution. John encourages listeners to get comfortable with the complicated mess, to truly listen to multiple frames and perspectives while holding onto their own, and then to roll up their sleeves and explore a way forward together.

What you’ll learn from this episode:
About John’s background and his brief stint in a band that opened for others
About the upcoming Design in Product conference
About the messiness of product development and problem-solving
About avoiding the traps of alignment and over-simplification

Quick Reference Guide
[0:00:24] Introduction of John Cutler and Design in Product 2023, and the back story behind “The Beautiful Mess”
[0:05:01] Patterns in messes
[0:10:23] The relationship between product and design
[0:14:11] Dealing with varying work speeds and perspectives
[0:20:32] Design Ops Summit, October 2-6, 2023
[0:21:45] The alignment trap and the simplification trap
[0:30:50] A new metaphor for looking at teams in organizations
[0:34:04] John’s special words for listeners

Resources and links from today’s episode:
Design in Product 2023 rosenfeldmedia.com/events/
The Beautiful Mess, John Culter’s Substack cutlefish.substack.com/
Images of Organization by Gareth Morgan www.amazon.com/Images-Organizati…an/dp/0761906320/