Design Better Podcast

We spoke with designer and entrepreneur Jason Mayden on a wide range of topics, from how a near-death experience in childhood shaped his career and life, to how he maintains his energy and focus, to why being a polymath is an enormous advantage in today’s job market.

In this interview we speak with Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky, and learn how being a designer has influenced the arc of his journey, leading a company from a 3-person startup to a public company. We talk about what it’s like to design for trust during a pandemic, and the power of having a clear company mission that all can align to.

We speak with Annie Jean Baptiste, Head of Product Inclusion at Google, about her new book Building For Everyone: Expand Your Market With Design Practices From Google's Product Inclusion Team. We ask her about what spurred her to write the book, along with some of the strategies she uses for researching, designing, and shipping inclusive products.

In the wake of a worldwide pandemic and economic catastrophe, we thought it would be timely to bring in an expert who has been using a designer’s mindset to help people reframe their approach to their careers. We speak with Bill Burnett, co-author of Designing Your Work Life, about how adopting a designer’s mindset can help you through your current challenges if you’re searching for work, and how setting aside time for reflection can help you understand what changes you need to make to find a better

Debbie Millman is the President Emeritus of AIGA and chair and co-founder of the Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She is also the host of Design Matters, the pioneering podcast on design and creativity. We spoke with Debbie about the role that teaching plays in her learning process, and covered a range of topics from ethics in design to the differences between being a designer and an artist.

n our interview with John Maeda, we learn how curiosity and humility have driven his wide-ranging and accomplished career. We also dive deep into his recent CX Report, which was formerly called the Design in Tech Report (we also ask him about that name change). We discuss why algorithms have the potential to narrow our point of view, and why digital transformation is so hard for companies that are lower on what he refers to as the “Kardashev Scale.”

We’ve been following author, entrepreneur, and teacher Seth Godin for a long time, and his writing and speaking have influenced how we think about creating and marketing products. So it was a huge honor to have him on our show, where we spoke about subjects ranging from how to take risks in your career, to why being creative is an act of generosity, to the idea of “creative destruction."

To celebrate the launch of the new InVision DSM, we're sharing one of our favorite episodes in conversation with Design Systems Advocate, Jina Anne. We chat with Jina about how she got into Design Systems, what she has learned from building these communities, and how being a hybrid designer-developer influences her understanding of Design Systems.

In today’s episode, we talk with Boyuan Gao and Jahan Mantin—the founders of Project Inkblot—who have built a practical framework that can help everyone design for diversity, and can also be a guide for challenging conversations. We discuss how they see design as an opportunity to bridge the divide and bring people into the conversation about designing products and services that address everyone’s needs, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or religion.

Are you on a product team or a feature team? After you listen to our interview with Marty Cagan, legendary product management guru, author, and partner at SVPG, you’ll know just where you stand, and how to become a product team leader if you aren’t already one. We also discuss why product management is misunderstood, the dual track agile process, discovery sprints, and the four types of prototypes that Marty has classified, including user, feasibility, live data, and hybrid prototypes.