Elementary, My Dear Watson: AI Essentials and Ethics with Chris Noessel

Why has artificial intelligence (AI) captivated the attention of everyday consumers now? Lou chats with Chris Noessel, Global Practice Design Lead for Transportation at IBM to explore how “smart” technology is shaking up many industries. His new book, “Designing Agentive Technology: AI That Works for People,” explores solutions, implications and ethics of design “smart” products for customers.

Making Conferences More Accessible with Darryl Adams, Intel’s Director of Accessibility

With the surge in popularity and need for hybrid and virtual events, Lou sits down with Intel’s Director of Accessibility, Darryl Adams, to discuss how technology can make in-person and virtual conferences more accessible and inclusive to speakers and audience members with disabilities. He also speaks to how accessible conference design can be improved and fine-tuned for speakers with disabilities, and help those without disabilities feel more comfortable presenting. What kind of accessibility principles and design factors should conference hosts consider for audience members with disabilities and those without disabilities when setting up for in-person and virtual events? How does this technology increase engagement and diversity in attendance? Listen as Darryl and Lou touch on all these topics, and more.

Darryl Adams recommends: Demystifying Disability by Emily Ladau

The Importance of Accessible Design Systems

A design system is a set of repeatable components and standards guiding the use of those components. Standards can come in the form of documentation, videos, blogs, discussion channels, meetups and office hours just to name a few. A design system may be built internally within an organization, or there are hundreds of open source design systems that can be downloaded and used. However, only a small percentage of those open source design systems are set up such that they can be successfully implemented in a manner that results in software that is accessible to people with disabilities who use assistive technology to interact with technology. This talk will discuss the importance of accessible design systems and a high level overview of the ten best known open source design systems.

Methodologies: Beyond the interview [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]

Researchers are being asked to help address challenges that are increasingly complex, strategic, and high-stakes. Our toolkit of methods needs to keep up with those challenges, as does our confidence and comfort with choosing, using, and combining those methods. Our Methods panelists will describe some of the exciting techniques they’re applying in their work, and discuss how they’ve overcome barriers to enriching their UXR toolkits.

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!)

[Demo] The AI edge: From researcher to strategist

In this talk, I’ll delve into how AI has helped to catapult me from a researcher to a strategist—a “super researcher” if you like. AI tools have streamlined my research processes, enhanced stakeholder communication, and freed up more time for strategic thinking. I’ll demonstrate how rapid data synthesis and efficient communication via AI have led to faster project turnarounds, allowing me to have better relationships with stakeholders and giving me more time to think and move more strategically in my company. We’ll illustrate the significant time-saving advantages of AI integration in UX research, positioning it as a crucial tool for staying ahead in a fast-paced tech world.

Takeaways

• Strategies for using AI to expedite UX research processes
• Techniques for leveraging AI in enhancing stakeholder communication
• Insights into transforming data analysis into strategic UX decision-making
• Demonstration of the efficiency of AI in UX project turnaround
• Understanding of AI’s role in maintaining agility in fast-paced tech environments
• Practical tips on integrating AI tools into UX research workflows

SUS: A System Unusable for Twenty Percent of the Population

Did you know that the SUS creates biases in your research, affecting one in five people? That’s right! People with disabilities, especially those who use assistive technology, are not considered by most of the questions in the SUS. When the SUS was invented, the author encouraged people to change it to suit different needs. In this talk, Samuel Proulx and Abid Virani from Fable will discuss how Fable adapted the SUS to work for assistive technology users. Drawing from over five thousand hours of research and testing involving assistive technology users, we created the Accessible Usability Scale (AUS). This presentation will include trends in AUS responses since it was released in December of 2020.

From Hype to Insight: Llewyn Paine on AI, UX, and Critical Thinking

What happens when a cognitive psychologist turned UX researcher brings a critical eye to AI? Dr. Llewyn Paine shares her unique perspective at the intersection of emerging technology and user research. With experience spanning neuromarketing, 3D television, and mixed reality, Llewyn has seen the hype cycles come and go—and learned to spot the gap between promise and practical value.

Llewyn and Lou explore the parallels between now-defunct technologies and today’s AI surge, noting how often new tools are overmarketed before their implications are truly understood. Llewyn urges researchers to engage with AI not as passive users but as experimenters: to test, retest, document, and analyze like scientists. Her recent workshop revealed how even identical prompts to the same model can yield wildly different results—an important reminder that AI is non-deterministic and context-sensitive.

Llewyn also shares a behind-the-scenes look at curating the Designing with AI 2025 conference, built around both the realities of today and the creative possibilities of tomorrow. She reminds us that critical thinking, experimentation, and thoughtful documentation are the UX research community’s superpowers in this unpredictable AI era.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• Why Llewyn’s background in cognitive psychology shapes her skepticism toward overhyped tech
• How past experiences with neuromarketing and 3D TV inform her approach to AI in UX
• What it means to treat AI prompts and outputs as experimental variables—not deterministic tools
• Why researchers should go straight to the models (not third-party tools) when exploring AI
• How variability in AI output challenges assumptions about accuracy and reproducibility
• What the Designing with AI 2025 conference reveals about balancing realism and creativity in tech adoption

Quick Reference Guide:

0:09 – Introduction of Llewyn and her journey as a UX researcher
5:25 – The limits and over-selling of neuro marketing
8:42 – A critique of AI as an analysis tool
11:55 – An experiment with AI
15:45 – A process to add consistency to working and researching with AI tools
17:21 – “Why Johnny Can’t Prompt”
19:09 – Why you should use the Rosenverse
21:24 – The upcoming Designing with AI conference
25:38 – The structure and panels of the conference
28:55 – Llewyn’s gift for listeners

The Joys and Dilemmas of Conducting UX Research with Older Adults

The pandemic may have accelerated older people’s use of digital tools for socializations and spending, but there are limits to what some older people are comfortable doing online. When last spring’s mad dash to schedule COVID vaccine appointments stretched some seniors’ tech abilities, ‘Vaccine angel’ groups stepped in to fill the gap. The digital divide and low tech literacy among older adults needs to be addressed as an opportunity, rather than a lost cause.

This session will offer a set of practical tips for conducting UX research with older, less tech savvy adults.

SUS: A System Unusable for Twenty Percent of the Population

Did you know that the SUS creates biases in your research, affecting one in five people? That’s right! People with disabilities, especially those who use assistive technology, are not considered by most of the questions in the SUS. As a designer, this could lead to you making design decisions that don’t take into account 20 percent of the visitors to your website. When the SUS was invented, the author encouraged people to change it to suit different needs. In this talk, Samuel Proulx from Fable will discuss how Fable adapted the SUS to work for assistive technology users. Drawing from over five thousand hours of research and testing involving assistive technology users, we created the Accessible Usability Scale (AUS). This presentation will include trends in AUS responses since it was released in December of 2020.

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