Human Insight Podcast
Hear from top experts in the fields of conversion optimization, UX research, design, product, and more.
Janelle Estes
Chief Insights Officer,
UserTesting
Andy
MacMillan
CEO, UserTesting
Andy
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Building strong design teams that scale: a conversation with Susan Rice
How do you build a customer-focused design team that scales?
Susan Rice has done it three times. She’s the Vice President of UX at Workiva, a global SaaS reporting compliance platform that enables the use of connected data and automation for reporting across finance, accounting, risk, and compliance.
In her Human Insight Podcast interview with Janelle Estes, UserTesting’s Chief Insights Officer, Rice discusses:
- Building a customer-focused team
- Her favorite UX design KPI
- UX design differences between B2B and B2C
- Advice for those embarking on a design career
This episode originally aired May 10, 2021.
Retail trends that will outlast the pandemic
The pandemic has changed so much about retail, but some retail trends will outlast the pandemic, such as providing a personalized experience, says Sean McKee, the former Director of eCommerce and CX at UK footwear retailer, Schuh.
In his Human Insight Podcast interview with Janelle Estes, UserTesting’s Chief Insights Officer, McKee discusses:
- His 25-year career at Schuh from storeroom to boardroom
- The biggest changes to retail and ecommerce over that time
- Keeping a customer focus in a sea of ecommerce data points
“What retailers have to think about is the question of experience and what experience looks like because if doing things that were at the experiential end of the spectrum were important before COVID, they're even more important now,” McKee said. “Customers really need to have a compelling reason to visit your store because they've just had an education that tells them they can do other things. So, the experiential stuff is important.”
This episode originally aired May 3, 2021.
Creating a framework for customer listening
Dan Storms, CookUnity’s Chief Product Officer, said adding steps to their sign up process had a positive result on the business.
It was a counterintuitive action from a design perspective. Usually, you want to eliminate steps. But listening to their best, most raving fans, yielded insights that a few added questions initially would result in an even better experience for customers.
And it was great for CookUnity, too. They saw a 50% increase in conversions.
The three-year-old startup is a direct-to-consumer meal delivery platform that allows its customers to choose a range of ready-to-eat meals from celebrity and up-and-coming chefs. It’s based in New York City, recently opened its second community kitchen in Los Angeles, and delivers to twenty-seven states.
In his Human Insight podcast interview with Janelle Estes, UserTesting’s Chief Insights Officer, Storms goes on to discuss:
- How they leveraged two bestsellers to create a framework for customer listening that they then applied to their product and market strategy
- How to validate customer feedback with surveys
- Insights on planning the NY Product Conference
This episode originally aired April 26, 2021.
Speaking the language of execs: it's not about CX
This week on the Human Insight podcast, we interview Tamara Adlin, Chief Product Officer at Blockchange Ventures and a C-level strategy and CX consultant.
In her interview with Janelle Estes, UserTesting’s Chief Insights Officer, Adlin discusses:
- Her career journey and work with Blockchange Ventures
- Her seminal book, The Essential Persona Lifecycle: Your Guide to Building and Using Personas
- Adopting the practice of customer-centricity
- Her magic trick to achieving executive alignment
- Startups and the Catch 22 of the MVP
- UX discovery and more
This episode originally aired April 19, 2021.
How video evokes empathy: insights from a former design lead at Hulu
When John S. Couch started at Hulu as Vice President of UX and Design in January 2016, one of the first things he wanted to do was produce a vision video.
Design is a lot like the parable of the elephant and the blind men, said Couch, author of The Art of Creative Rebellion. In the story, the blind men have never come across an elephant before so each man feels and describes only one part of the elephant, like its trunk or tail—unable to describe the elephant in its entirety
“They're all correct, but they're looking at it only through one slice,” Couch said. “And what I wanted to do was make a short film, which described the end result. What the whole elephant looked like.”
“And there was an immediate mental shift,” Couch said. “From ‘We're not really sure’ to ‘Oh, that's the elephant.’”
In Episode 11 of the Human Insight Podcast, Couch goes on to talk about his career path (such as exaggerating his skill sets to land a job at Wired to the evolution of his role now as a Mr. Wolf—consulting companies on their UX and design problems).
This episode originally aired April 12, 2021.
Accelerating edtech: A conversation with Raina Mehta on supporting learners in a remote world
Edtech is booming. In this episode of the Human Insight podcast, we interview Raina Mehta who is vice president and head of product and UX at Kaplan. In her interview with Janelle Estes, UserTesting’s Chief Insights Officer, Raina shares how edtech is accelerating their efforts to engage with today’s online learners.
This episode originally aired April 5, 2021.
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Innovation and UX in the public sector
Stephanie Nguyen, Research Scientist, MIT Media Lab and Nick Sinai, Senior Advisor, Insight Partners and Adjunct Faculty, Harvard Kennedy School join UserTesting CEO, Andy MacMillan, and Chief Insights Officer, Janelle Estes.
This episode originally aired November 30, 2020.
UX in a B2B world
Kate Lawrence, Senior Director, User Experience at Akamai Technologies, joins UserTesting CEO, Andy MacMillan, and Chief Insights Officer, Janelle Estes, to discuss user experience in B2B.
This episode originally aired November 16, 2020.
The parallels between UX/CX and employee experience
Chief Insights Officer, Janelle Estes, and Head of UX Research at Humu, Marieke McCloskey, discuss the parallels between UX/CX and employee experience.
This episode originally aired November 2, 2020.
Harnessing customer emotion to create meaningful experiences
UX leader Paul Stonick joins UserTesting's CEO, Andy MacMillan, and Chief Insights Officer, Janelle Estes, to discuss harnessing customer emotion to create meaningful experiences.
This episode originally aired October 19, 2020.
Building a customer-centric culture at Rothy’s
Rothy's Product Designer, Gina DeMatteo, joins UserTesting CEO, Andy MacMillan, and Chief Insights Officer, Janelle Estes, to discuss taking a proactive approach to understanding and addressing customer needs and building a customer-centric culture.
This episode originally aired October 6, 2020.
COVID-19's impact on travel industry consumer behavior
Diya Loney, Costco Travel Product Manager, joins Chief Insights Officer, Janelle Estes, and guest co-host VP, Market Strategy, Michael Mace, for a discussion about how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted travel industry consumer behavior.
This episode originally aired September 21, 2020.
Measuring user happiness
Tomer Sharon, Managing Director, Head of User Research & Metrics at Goldman Sachs, joins UserTesting Chief Insights Officer, Janelle Estes, to discuss measuring user happiness.
This episode originally aired September 7, 2020.
Health communication and the future of telemedicine
CEO, Andy MacMillan, and Chief Insights Officer, Janelle Estes, speak with Director of The University of Texas at Austin Center for Health Communication and Professor of Population Health, Michael Mackert, Ph.D. about what health communication is, why it matters, and the future of telemedicine in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
This episode originally aired August 14, 2020.
Messaging and brand during COVID-19
Chief Insights Officer, Janelle Estes, hosts a discussion with CEO and Founder of Motivate Impact Mona Patel on messaging and brand during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This episode originally aired August 6, 2020.
