Christian Crumlish: Product Management for UX People

What connects product designers and UXers? And does that connection help in the transition from UX to product management?

In this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, you’ll meet Christian Crumlish, Founder of Design in Product and author of the soon-to-be released Product Management for UX People. Christian and Lou deep dive into the world of product management and its relationship with UX, as well as the advantages design practitioners share when moving into product management roles.

Highlights from this discussion include:

• Understanding the current state of product management relative to UX;
• The superpower designers can tap into when communicating effectively, and how that skill is inherently utilized by product management folks (the “language of the bosses”);
• How designers/strategists/researchers share an advantage by shifting to product management through intuitively asking questions such as “how will we grow?” and “how can we keep this going?” with consideration to cost-effective solutions;
• The need to be decisive in the face of fairly complex issues across the time-horizon; and
• Why honing in on the value of listening closely to those who work adjacent to product managers will help define the cross-functional roadmap.

All about ResearchOps with Kate Towsey

Kate Towsey has certainly left her mark on research operations, pioneering the practice, helping launch the ResearchOps community, and now through writing Research That Scales: The Research Operations Handbook, which Rosenfeld Media published in September of 2024.

In her interview with Lou, Kate reflects on her journey from content strategist to a pivotal figure in the research operations community. She recounts her early days at the UK Government Digital Service, where she unexpectedly found herself building research labs, and later at Atlassian, where she helped develop systems to manage vast amounts of research data. Through her work, Kate realized the need for a more structured approach to research operations, leading to facilitating a global ResearchOps community. Oh, and along the way, she coined the term “PWDR” (“People Who Do Research”).

The conversation delves into the strategic importance of ResearchOps, emphasizing that it’s much more than just administrative support—it’s about designing systems that enable organizations to effectively learn and innovate. Kate likens research operations to city planning, highlighting the need for strategy to build successful, sustainable systems.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• How Kate’s early work in content strategy and her experiences at the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) led to the work she does today
• The importance of aligning research operations with a clear research strategy
• How research operations have evolved over the years
• The distinction between research and insights, and the value of turning research findings into actionable insights that drive decision-making

Quick Reference Guide:
0:27 – Introduction of Kate and her book
3:32 – Kate’s ah-ha moment
9:38 – Facilitating a global conversation before writing the book
11:47 – 8 elements unique to operations
14:09 – The Rosenverse
16:56 – Defining research operations
16:15 – Strategy in operations
20:50 – A story from overlooking the Hudson River in 2018
23:58 – On insight
27:14 – Human-centered research
32:04 – Kate’s gift for listeners

Make Things Better, Not Just Different with Erin Weigel

Have you ever thought about the similarities between art and science? Or about how math is the language of the universe? No? Welcome to a perspective shift. Ultimately this episode is about making things better, not just different. But how we get there is through a thoughtful and entertaining discussion with the witty and philosophical Erin Weigel.

Erin Weigel wants us to make things better, not just different. But how do we get there?

Lou had a thoughtful and entertaining discussion with Erin, always witty and philosophical—and often funny as hell. Join them on a perspective-shifting conversation that bridges disciplines and challenges conventional thinking, all in the pursuit of genuine improvement.

Erin is the author of the recently published Design for Impact: Your Guide to Designing Effective Product Experiments. She brings a fresh, accessible, and humor-filled take on what may seem like a dry topic: experimentation. Erin digs into the role of experimentation in design, advocating for always defaulting to experiments even if they’re the quick and dirty kind.

Erin and Lou also cover the following:

• Wonky stuff like normal distributions, the central limit theorem, and what can be learned from outliers
• The power of experiments to unite multidisciplinary teams by getting away from opinions and finding the truth
• How professionals can use the principles of experimentation to navigate uncertainties and drive meaningful improvements
• Discerning the impact of changes made

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• How Erin, with a fine arts background, became the principal designer at Booking.com and the Senior Group Product Design Manager at Deliveroo
• The fundamental similarities between art and science
• Why you should never skip the experimental phase
• How experimentation unites people across disciplines
• The difference between making things different and making them better

Quick Reference Guide:
[0:32] – Introduction of Erin; similarities between art and science
[4:05] – Barriers between art and science
[5:58] – Statistics is fun!
[12:37] – Defaulting to experimentation
[18:06] – Break – 5 reasons to use the Rosenverse
[20:36] – Experimentation as a uniting force
[25:49] – Make things better, not just different
[28:32] – Erin’s gift for listeners

Making a Classic Even Better with Leah Buley and Joe Natoli

Leah Buley and Joe Natoli have teamed up to make something great (check out the reviews on Amazon!) even greater. How? Well, considering that The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide was written more than a decade ago, it was time to revisit the content and make it even more relevant for today’s UX teams. After all, times have changed.

But the fundamental principles of the original book haven’t changed. They are as solid today as they were 11 years ago. What has changed is that the methods have been adapted for the speed of change in today’s businesses.

Joe says it best: “These methods are shorter. They’re simpler. They’re more direct in a lot of ways, and they cut to the chase in a way that longer processes don’t. I’ve met plenty of senior people who are throwing up their hands and going, ‘We’re doing all the things. Why isn’t this working?’ And the truth is, they’re kind of overworking and overthinking. Everything in this book is practical and direct and gets you from point A to B. I just don’t think there’s any better way to get there.”

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• About Leah’s experience as a solo UX practitioner and the inspiration behind the first edition of UX Team of One
• How the UX field has changed over the past decade
• How the second edition aims to provide comprehensive yet practical UX methods that can be applied in various organizational settings
• About the shortcomings of UX boot camps and educational programs
• A perspective that balances UX advocacy with business objectives and the reality of corporate politics
• How to navigate and thrive in a UX career despite industry challenges, focusing on practical, adaptable methods and tools.

Quick Reference Guide:
0:46 – Introduction of Leah and Joe
1:33 – The User Experience Team of One, second edition
6:46 – Large or small team, Leah and Joe’s book is comprehensive without being overwhelming
8:58 – Righting wrongs
12:14 – What’s new in the second edition – striving to do more with less
15:58 – Break – plug for the Rosenverse
18:20 – The current shitstorm
21:39 – On speed
24:40 – On toolkits. Tools and methods are two different things.
28:16 – Who needs The User Experience Team of One?
30:45 – Leah and Joe’s gifts for the audience

The Rosenbot and the Rosenverse: An AMA with Lou Rosenfeld

What happens when you mix together nearly 20 years of lovingly-created UX books, conference recordings, conversations, and much more? And fold in a well-designed chatbot to help pull all this curated goodness together? You get the Rosenverse—Rosenfeld Media’s new membership platform that you can try today! Join Lou Rosenfeld for a quick tour of the Rosenverse, and bring your questions and suggestions.

Transforming Language with AI with Peter van Dijck

In the latest episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Lou sits down with old friend Peter van Dijck, author of Information Architecture for Designers: Structuring Websites for Business Success, one of the first books ever written on Information Architecture. Peter is now a partner of Simply Put, a Colombian company that builds and designs useful AI Agents—including the soon-to-launch Rosenbot!

Peter offers insight into the world of AI. Having been one of the first to speak about IA, it is fascinating to hear what he now has to say about AI. Join Lou and Peter as they take you through the journey where language itself is transforming from design to technology.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• An introduction to the Rosenbot, an AI bot that Peter’s company is developing for Rosenfeld Media
• Some basic vocabulary for speaking about AI and ML so you “don’t feel like an idiot”
• Mind-blowing truths about the potential of Generative AI’s language capabilities
• How writing has transformed from a design to a technology and learn what that means for how we interact with the data
• About the importance of highly curated information when training bots and the tricky balance that comes when you want to present less polished sources like unedited conversations
• The importance of the human side of things
• The biggest surprise that has come from working in the industry

Quick Reference Guide
[0:15] – Lou’s introduction of Peter Van Dijck
[3:00] – AI on a basic level
[4:59] – Generative AI’s language capabilities
[18:08] – How we interact with metadata and writing as a technology
[20:00] – How real-use cases make technology more exciting and instantaneous
[22:19] – Information about the new Designing With AI Conference
[23:33] – Some of the jargon around AI and IA
[24:16] – Introduction to Lou’s Chat Bot, the Rosen Bot
[24:39] – The importance of training bots on highly curated information
[28:34] – The tricky balance of curated and less polished content
[30:26] – The human side of things
[31:55] – Different interaction models
[37:58] – The biggest surprise working in the industry
[38:30] – A Gift For You

The Design Conductors with Rachel Posman and John Calhoun

What do music and DesignOps have in common? So much so that Rachel Posman and John Calhoun use music as a framework for their new book, The Design Conductors: Your Essential Guide to Design Operations—the first book written about the subject. Both of the authors come from creative backgrounds (John as a musician, Rachel as a ballet dancer), and they describe how their personal experiences influenced their approach to the book and their work.

The music analogies are plenty. One example is the importance of orchestration in design operations, equating it to coordinating a team to work harmoniously, much like a conductor leading an orchestra. Rachel and John explain that design operations is a creative process, blending design and management, and that those creative aspects are often underestimated.

They highlight the maturing nature of design operations as a discipline, noting that the book fills a gap in resources for both newcomers and experienced professionals. The book is structured in two acts (another musical metaphor): the fundamentals of DesignOps, and the practical, tactical methods for building and scaling teams.

Rachel and John also discuss some common challenges in DesignOps, like making the invisible work visible and advocating for the value of the discipline. They stress the importance of “working loudly” to ensure that the contributions of design ops teams are recognized so that teams are properly resourced.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• Why Rachel and John chose a musical metaphor to use in their book
• Why Rachel and John decided to write the first book on Design Ops
• How the book is formatted and why there is something for everyone
• Why Rachel encourages her team to “work louder”

Quick Reference Guide:
0:24 – Introduction of Rachel and John
2:45 – Brining a music metaphor to design ops and highlighting the creativity within operations
6:53 – The design materials of operations
7:42 – Communication
9:40 – Building the plane while flying
11:06 – What the book covers and who it’s for
14:22 – 5 reasons you need the Rosenverse
17:14 – The journey readers can expect to take
21:07 – The big errors and challenges in design ops
23:34 – Ideas for working loud and being visible
27:06 – Gifts for listeners

Middleware in Medicine with Carol Massa

Listen wherever you get your favorite podcasts!
Apple podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio

Imagine being the service design lead of a healthcare network of 88,000 patients. Your team consists of five people. Sounds daunting, doesn’t it? This is the work that Carol Massa does every day at Northwell Health, New York’s largest healthcare network. She brings her wisdom and experience not only to this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, but to the inaugural Advancing Service Design Conference on December 3-4, 2024.

Starting as a design student at SCAD, Carol’s career path has taken her to management consulting and now to her pivotal position at Northwell’s Enterprise Digital Service division.

Carol discusses her team’s unique approach to service design, acting as translators of human insights for digital services. Her team’s work involves transforming research and data into actionable insights, creating playbooks, and facilitating collaboration across various departments. The focus is on enhancing patient and clinician experiences by streamlining administrative tasks through innovative digital tools.

Throughout the conversation, Carol highlights the importance of building relationships and humanizing interactions. She shares insights on using familiar frameworks to engage clinicians and bridge gaps in communication, ensuring that all stakeholders understand the shared goals of improving patient care.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• The Role of Service Design in Healthcare: Understanding how service design can improve patient and clinician experiences within large healthcare systems like Northwell Health
• Collaboration Across Disciplines: How a small service design team collaborates with various departments and stakeholders, including clinicians, engineers, and business strategists, to enhance service delivery
• Translating Insights into Action: Techniques for translating complex data and human insights into actionable strategies and digital tools that address specific needs
• Humanizing Interactions: The importance of building personal relationships and fostering open communication to bridge gaps
• Prototyping and Testing Ideas: How rapid prototyping and testing can be used to validate ideas and improve processes, ensuring that new tools and services effectively meet user needs.
• Adapting Existing Frameworks: Creative approaches to leveraging existing frameworks (like problems, goals, and tasks) in a way that resonates with different audiences, particularly in translating technical language for clinicians.

Quick Reference Guide:
0:00 – Meet Carol
2:02 – Service design at Northwell
7:25 – The makeup of the service design team
9:49 – The operational tools and documentation the team uses
13:46 – An example of incorporating and automating a new operational process
17:36 – Why you need the Rosenverse
20:04 – Action-driven problems, goals, and tasks
24:35 – Breaking into established systems
29:02 – Carol’s gift for listeners

Rock Climbing and Security UX with Heidi Trost

Listen wherever you get your favorite podcasts!
Apple podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio

Just as a rock climber meticulously checks their gear and follows strict safety protocols to navigate treacherous heights, security UX professionals must also anticipate risks and design safeguards to ensure a smooth and safe journey for users in a digital landscape. In Lou’s interview with Heidi Trost, author of Human-Centered Security: How to Design Systems that are Both Safe and Usable, Heidi highlights the critical safety protocols climbers and belayers follow, which mirror the precautions needed in system design to mitigate human error and anxiety. This analogy sets the stage for a broader discussion on security user experience challenges.

Heidi stresses the necessity of cross-disciplinary collaboration, especially when dealing with sensitive data like personally identifiable information (PII) and electronic protected health information (EPHI). She points out how involving legal and security teams early can streamline projects and improve outcomes. Designers, as facilitators, must bridge the gap between complex security concepts and user comprehension. Heidi’s book helps them do this by using personas to understand how the dynamic between users, security UX, and threat actors shapes.

Lou and Heidi’s conversation explores the evolution of multi-factor authentication (MFA) and its unintended consequences. What started as a simple 6-digit code morphed into a troublesome fatigue for users. Heidi underscores the importance of iterative design to adapt to these evolving challenges, likening the chaos of security interactions to a relentless ping-pong match.

As they look ahead, Louis and Heidi discuss the rapid evolution of AI in security contexts, emphasizing the balance between technological advancement and user protection. With AI assistants poised to know more about individuals than ever, designers must remain vigilant to prevent potential misuse. Their conversation is an invitation for professionals to rethink how they approach security UX and design, encouraging a proactive stance in this ever-changing landscape.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• The Importance of Safety Protocols: Just as climbers rely on safety checks, security UX requires robust protocols to protect users from potential threats.
• Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration: The value of involving legal, privacy, and security teams early in the design process to streamline project timelines and enhance security measures.
• User Dynamics: Insights into the complex relationships between users, security measures, and threat actors, and how these dynamics affect user trust and experience.
• Iterative Design in Security: The necessity of adapting security measures, such as multi-factor authentication, based on user feedback and evolving threats to avoid fatigue and exploitation.
• The security threats of AI: The challenges and considerations of integrating AI technologies in security systems, focusing on the need for vigilance to prevent misuse and ensure user protection.
• The Role of Designers as Facilitators: How designers can bridge the gap between complex security concepts and user comprehension, fostering better communication and understanding in security UX.

Quick Reference Guide:
0:25 – Meet Heidi and get a rock climbing primer
5:55 – Emerging protocols in the security space
8:20 – The designer’s role in security
10:13 – Other “roles” – the user, the security user experience, the threat actor
15:09 – Designers as translators, conversation facilitators, and advocates
17:22 – Rosenverse – why you need it
19:44 – Security UX vs other types of UX
22:38 – The threat actor
26:06 – Changes and threats with AI
31:59 – Heidi’s gift for listeners

We Need to Talk with Joshua Graves

Tough conversations can feel like real-life horror stories—but they don’t have to. In We Need to Talk: A Survival Guide for Tough Conversations, Joshua Graves offers a practical, psychologically grounded toolkit for navigating conflict with clarity and courage. Drawing on insights from neuroscience, psychology, and his own lived experience, Graves explains why our brains react so strongly to tension and conflict—and what we can do about it.

Lou and Joshua discuss workplace power dynamics, emotional triggers, and avoidance patterns, showing how even a moment of pause can shift the outcome. Joshua’s advice? Slow down. Breathe. Ask questions that begin with what or how instead of why. And remember, you’re allowed to step away and come back—conflict doesn’t need to be resolved in the heat of the moment.

Whether you’re facing pay disputes, boundary violations, or breakdowns in trust, Joshua’s goal isn’t to script your response but to equip you with flexible, self-aware tools you can adapt to your own voice.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• Why Joshua Graves, an artist with a love for spooky aesthetics, is an unexpected but deeply thoughtful guide to conflict.
• How his personal discomfort with confrontation led to years of research in psychology, neuroscience, and communication.
• Why our brains interpret digital conflict—like emails or Slack messages—as real threats, and what that means for how we respond.
• What it means to treat tough conversations like design problems, working within human constraints rather than against them.
• How slowing down and asking the right questions can transform emotionally charged moments into opportunities for clarity and connection.
• Why one-size-fits-all advice doesn’t work—and how Graves’ approach helps you develop your own voice in conflict.

Quick Reference Guide:
0:12 – Meet Joshua Graves
2:45 – The background of Joshua’s book, We Need to Talk
7:30 – Helpful rabbit holes when researching and writing We Need to Talk
10:00 – Advice for tough conversations
16:23 – Why you should use the Rosenverse
18:38 – What to do when someone is out of control
22:07 – “Conversations” to have with yourself
25:20 – Joshua’s gift for the audience