The Informed Life

Epilogue

29 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this final episode, I reflect on things I learned by producing the show.See full show notes at:https://theinformed.life/2024/12/29/episode-156-epil...

Peter Morville on Exit Interview, part 2

15 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Morville is a pioneer of information architecture. He co-authored Information Architecture for the World-Wide Web, the classic O’Reilly “pol...

Peter Morville on Exit Interview, part 1

01 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Morville is a pioneer of information architecture. He co-authored Information Architecture for the World-Wide Web, the classic O’Reilly “pol...

Joe Natoli on The UX Team of One

17 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Joe Natoli is a renowned UX design consultant, advisor, and educator. Now, he’s collaborated with Leah Buley on a new edition of her classic book, T...

Andy Budd on The Growth Equation

03 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Andy Budd co-founded pioneering UX design agency Clearleft. After leading and growing that company, he became an advisor, VC, and coach. He’s now wr...

Karen McGrane on Content Management

20 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Karen McGrane describes herself as a “UX multi-hyphenate”: information architect, content strategist, technical communicator, accessibility advoca...

Scott Berkun on Why Design is Hard

06 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Scott Berkun is the bestselling author of nine books on design, innovation, remote work, and more. His most recent book, Why Design Is Hard, is the se...

Tamsen Webster on Communicating Change

22 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tamsen Webster describes herself as “part message designer, part English-to-English translator, and part magpie.” She is also a consultant and aut...

Luc Beaudoin on Hookmark

08 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Luc Beaudoin is the co-founder and CEO of CogSci Apps, the developers of a brilliant Mac productivity tool called Hookmark. He is also an adjunct ...

Chris Risdon on Service Design

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Chris Risdon is a Senior Staff Designer at eBay. Chris describes himself as an interaction designer that tends to look through a service design lens. ...

Jodi Forlizzi on Designing With AI

11 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jodi Forlizzi is the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. For...

Greg Petroff on the State of Design

28 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Greg Petroff is a renowned executive design leader. He’s built and led design teams for companies like GE, Google, Compass, and Cisco. In this conve...

Colin Eagan and Jeffrey MacIntyre on Personalization

14 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

My guests today are Colin Eagan and Jeffrey MacIntyre. Although they work for different companies, Colin and Jeffrey share a common focus: how informa...

Harry Max on Prioritization

30 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Harry Max is an executive player coach with a long trajectory in Silicon Valley. Through his consultancy, he helps senior leaders and their teams real...

Stéphanie Walter on Neurospicy

16 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Stéphanie Walter is a UX researcher and designer based in Luxembourg. She’s prolific in sharing useful information via social media and her newslet...

Rachel Price on Responsible AI

02 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rachel Price is a Principal Information Architect at Microsoft and teaches Information Architecture at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle. She w...

Emily Campbell on The Shape of AI

19 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Emily Campbell is a design leader and advisor. She brings thoughtfulness and depth to producing business results through design and helping designers ...

Chris Aldrich on Cybernetic Communications

05 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Chris Aldrich has the most multi-disciplinary resume I’ve ever seen, with a background that includes biomedics, electrical engineering, entertainmen...

Dave Gray on Possibilities

21 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dave Gray describes himself as a possibilitarian. He focuses on helping people and teams realize their creative potential. Dave the author of several ...

Nikki Anderson on Research Impact

07 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nikki Anderson is an independent user research consultant, instructor, author, and speaker. Nikki uses her background in education and psychology to m...

Michael Anton Dila on Oslo for AI

24 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Anton Dila describes himself as a “designer of conversation” and someone with a passion for starting things. Among the things he’s start...

Dave Elfving on Gray Area

10 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dave Elfving is an experience designer and educator. He spent eleven years at apple, where his last role was as Head of Interactive Strategy. These da...

Joey deVilla on Layoffs

25 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Joey deVilla describes himself as an experienced, engaging, accordion-playing, golden-voiced developer advocate looking for a new role. He’s had a l...

Elizabeth McGuane on Design by Definition

11 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Elizabeth McGuane is a UX director at Shopify and the author of Design by Definition, a book about the impact of language in user experience. As you m...

Pierluigi Dalla Rosa on Interactive Environments

28 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Pierluigi Dalla Rosa is an interaction designer at Humane, the makers of the AI Pin. But that isn’t the focus of our conversation today. Instead, we...

Nathan Shedroff on Strategy

14 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nathan Shedroff is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and educator. Like me, he teaches at the graduate interaction design program of the California Co...

2023 Year in Review

31 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is a compilation of conversations from 2023. It’s not meant as a best-of collection, but an opportunity to highlight some themes that e...

Steve Portigal on Writing, part 2

17 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Steve Portigal is an independent user research consultant. He is the author of Interviewing Users and Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries. Steve and...

Steve Portigal on Writing, part 1

03 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Steve Portigal is an independent user research consultant. He is the author of Interviewing Users and Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries. Steve was...

Audrey Crane on Shadow Design

19 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Audrey Crane is the Head of Growth at DesignMap, a product and strategy design firm. She’s also the author of What CEOs Need to Know About Design, a...

Nate Davis on IA Sub-disciplines

05 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nate Davis is an independent information architecture consultant and a longtime contributor to the global IA community. In this conversation, we discu...

Karl Voit on Org Mode

22 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Karl Voit describes himself as “a life hacker trying to make deliberate decisions on every aspect of life.” Among these are the tools he uses to m...

Karl Fast on Reading

08 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Karl Fast is an independent scholar, information architect, and futurist. He’s the co-author with Stephen Anderson of Figure It Out: Getting From In...

Jenae Cohn on Design for Learning

24 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jenae Cohn is the Executive Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at UC Berkeley. Along with Michael Greer, Jenae recently published Design...

Sönke Ahrens on Smart Notes

10 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sönke Ahrens is an independent researcher and coach. He is best known as the author of How to Take Smart Notes, a popular book on the zettelkasten me...

Chiara Ogan on Personal Libraries

27 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Chiara Ogan is a former UX designer and information architect. She recently left that career to become a mental health therapist. Chiara’s backgroun...

Alex Wright on Informatica

13 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Alex Wright is the Head of User Experience at Google News. He’s also an author, and his most recent book, Informatica, is the second edition of Glut...

Aidan Helfant on PKM for Learning

30 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Aidan Helfant is a college student who’s using personal knowledge management (PKM) to improve his learning. He’s also sharing his methods and tool...

Maggie Appleton on Digital Gardening

16 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Maggie Appleton is a product designer at Ought, an AI research lab that’s working on ways to scale open-ended thinking with machine learning. She’...

Bob Kasenchak on Music, part 2

02 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bob Kasenchak is a taxonomist and information architect at Factor. This is the second of two episodes with Bob that focus on what information architec...

Bob Kasenchak on Music, part 1

18 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bob Kasenchak is a taxonomist and information architect at Factor. Bob’s background is in music, and this conversation delves into what information ...

Are Halland on the Core Model

04 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Are Halland has worked in digital product development, strategy, design, and communication for over a quarter of a century. During that time, he creat...

Dan Russell on The Joy of Search

21 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dan Russell spent 17 years working at Google, with a significant part of that tenure as a Search Anthropologist: “someone who tries to understand ho...

Sheryl Cababa on Systems Thinking for Social Change

07 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sheryl Cababa is the Chief Strategy Officer of Substantial, an experience design consultancy based in Seattle. She’s the author of Closing the Loop,...

Jerry Michalski on Jerry's Brain

23 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jerry Michalski helps organizations become more trustworthy by exploring their language, processes, and intentions. That’s fascinating in itself —...

Andy Fitzgerald on Structured Content

09 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Andy Fitzgerald is an information architecture and content strategy consultant. He works with mission-driven organizations to produce systems that com...

Nicole van der Hoeven on Obsidian

26 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nicole van der Hoeven is a Developer Advocate at Grafana Labs. She is also a communicator, sharing what she learns through her writing, conference pre...

Hugh Dubberly on Design Models

12 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hugh Dubberly is the founder of Dubberly Design Office, an interaction design studio based in San Francisco. Hugh has a long trajectory in the design ...

Carrie Hane on Content Models

26 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Carrie Hane is an evangelist at Sanity, a cloud-based content platform provider. Carrie is co-author of Designing Connected Content, which advocates f...

Michael Becker on Knowledge Work

12 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Becker is the founder and CEO of Identity Praxis, a strategic advisory firm. He’s also a prolific communicator, having produced dozens of Yo...

Léonie Watson on Accessibility

29 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Léonie Watson is an accessibility engineer, W3C director, technology writer, and speaker. She’s director at TetraLogical, a consultancy focused on ...

David Rose on SuperSight

15 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

David Rose is an entrepreneur, MIT lecturer, author, and pioneer in ambient computing. Among other institutions, his work has been featured in MoMA, T...

Marcia Bates on Search Systems

01 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Marcia Bates is Professor Emerita in UCLA’s Department of Information Studies. Over the course of a long career in both consulting and academia, Dr....

Scott Jenson on Open Source UX

18 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Scott Jenson has done strategic UX design work for some of tech’s most important companies, including Apple and Google. Now he’s semi-retired and ...

Amy Jiménez Márquez on Leading Information Architecture

04 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Amy Jiménez Márquez is Vice President of Experience Design at Zillow. Previously, she led design teams at Amazon and Compass. In this conversation, ...

Bram Wessel and Gary Carlson on The Information Layer

20 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Bram Wessel and Gary Carlson are the founders of Factor, an information architecture and experience design consultancy. In this conversation, we discu...

Listener Questions

06 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This is episode 100 of The Informed Life podcast. To celebrate, I decided to dedicate it to you, the show’s listeners. So today, I don’t have a gu...

Mark Bernstein on Tinderbox

23 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Mark Bernstein is chief scientist of Eastgate Systems, Inc. He’s been writing hypertexts and developing hypertext authoring software since the late ...

Alice Albrecht on re:collect

09 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Alice Albrecht is the founder and CEO of re:collect, a software tool that helps knowledge creators focus and connect. Alice’s background is in cogni...

Rob Ashton on the Science of Writing

25 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Rob Ashton is a writer who focuses on the science of how the things we read and write influence what we think and do. Rob founded the global learning ...

Erin Malone on Pattern Libraries

11 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Erin Malone is the Chair of the Interaction Design BFA Program at the California College of the Arts. In this conversation, we focus on Erin’s long ...

Natalie Marie Dunbar on Scaling Content Strategy

28 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Natalie Marie Dunbar is a senior manager of content design at Walmart. She’s the author of From Solo to Scaled: Building a Sustainable Content Strat...

Howard Rheingold on Tools for Thought

14 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Howard Rheingold is an eminent author, maker, and educator. His work has explored and defined key aspects of digital culture, including the use of com...

Lorenzo Bernaschina on Gems Notes

31 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Lorenzo Bernaschina is the developer of Gems Notes, a note-taking tool that uses artificial intelligence to find relationships between ideas. In this ...

Steve Portigal on Research Skills

17 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Steve Portigal is a consultant who helps organizations build more mature user research practices. He’s the author of Interviewing Users: How to Unco...

Daniel Stillman on Conversation Design

03 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Daniel Stillman is a conversation designer and coach. He’s the host of The Conversation Factory podcast and author of Good Talk: How to Design Conve...

Mike Rohde on Sketchnote Thinking

19 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Mike Rohde is a designer, teacher, and illustrator — but you’re more likely familiar with his work in sketchnoting. Mike is the author of The Sket...

Kat King on Notes for Learning

05 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Kat King is an information architect who’s “interested in information and how we figure things out.” She replied to one of my Twitter threads ab...

Sam Ladner on Managing Research Knowledge

22 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Sam Ladner is a sociologist, UX researcher, and student of productivity and the nature of work. She’s been a researcher at Amazon and Microsoft, and...

Austin Govella on the IA of Note-taking

08 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Austin Govella is a user experience design lead at Avanade, a global professional services company. He’s the author of Collaborative Product Design ...

Veronica Erb on Annotating Books

24 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Veronica Erb is the author of Finding Out, an email newsletter for people who do and use UX research. Previously, she led UX research at NPR and consu...

Dorian Taylor on Christopher Alexander

10 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dorian Taylor is a consulting designer. He’s been influenced by the work of the architect and design theorist Christopher Alexander, who died in Mar...

Laura Yarrow on Trusted Agitators

27 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Laura Yarrow is Head of Design for HM Land Registry in the UK. She’s also a public speaker and educator. In this conversation, we talk about how des...

Oliver Caviglioli on Graphic Organizers

13 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Oliver Caviglioli is a former headteacher of a special needs school. Now, he’s an information designer and author of several books about education. ...

Indi Young on Time to Listen

27 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Indi Young is a researcher who coaches, writes, and teaches about inclusive product strategy. She was one of the founders of the pioneering UX agency ...

Peter Bogaards on a UX Canon

13 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Bogaards is an evangelist, educator, and coach at Informaat experience design. Peter has shared design knowledge via his InfoDesign blog since 1...

Madonnalisa Chan on Notes for Living

30 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Madonnalisa Chan is director of product management, taxonomy, and content services at Salesforce. I’ve known Lisa for a long time and admire her wor...

Boon Yew Chew on Roam

16 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Boon Yew Chew is a strategic designer at Elsevier and a leader in IxDA, the Interaction Design Association. In this conversation, we delve into Roam R...

Dan Klyn on the BASIC Framework

02 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dan Klyn is co-founder of The Understanding Group, an information architecture consultancy based in Michigan. Dan has also created useful and influent...

Year in Review

19 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In observance of the winter holidays, this episode doesn’t feature a guest interview. Instead, I reflect on five themes that emerged in the diverse ...

Dan Brown on IA Lenses

05 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Dan Brown is the co-founder of UX design studio EightShapes. He’s also the author of Communicating Design, Designing Together, and Practical Design ...

Hans Krueger on the Cycle of Emotions

21 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Hans Krueger is co-founder of the international design consultancy MetaDesign. He also co-founded another design consultancy, FutureDraft, where we wo...

Annie Murphy Paul on The Extended Mind

07 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Annie Murphy Paul is an acclaimed science writer. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Scientific American, Slate, Time maga...

Patrick Tanguay on Newsletter Curation

24 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Patrick Tanguay is a self-described "generalist, synthesist, and curator of eclectic ideas." His weekly newsletter, Sentiers, surfaces deep ...

Nathan Shedroff on Foodicons

10 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Nathan Shedroff is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and a colleague at the California College of the Arts, where we both teach in the graduate intera...

Sunni Brown on Deep Self Design

26 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Sunni Brown is a social entrepreneur who uses visual literacy, design thinking, and visual facilitation to solve complex problems. She's the auth...

Karl Fast on Interactionism, part 2

12 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Karl Fast is an independent scholar, information architect, and futurist. He's the co-author of Figure It Out: Getting From Information to Unders...

Karl Fast on Interactionism, part 1

29 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Karl Fast is an independent scholar, information architect, and futurist. He's the co-author of Figure It Out: Getting From Information to Unders...

Mags Hanley on Career Architecture

15 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this conversation, we discuss Career Architecture, the focus of her current coaching work and subject of her upcoming book.Listen to the show Down...

Listener questions

01 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

No guest in this episode. Instead, I answer listener questions. If you have a question you'd like me to address on the show, please email me at l...

Jim Kalbach on Jobs to Be Done

18 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jim Kalbach is the chief evangelist at MURAL, a leading provider of online visual collaboration software. He's the author of Designing Web Naviga...

Udhaya Kumar Padmanabhan on India

04 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Udhaya Kumar Padmanabhan is a Global Strategic Design Director at Designit, an international strategic design consultancy. He is based in Bangalore, a...

Sarah Barrett on Architectural Scale

20 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Sarah Barrett is a principal IA Manager at Microsoft. She's been writing compellingly about information architecture in Medium, and in this conve...

Sophia Prater on Object Oriented UX

06 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Sophia Prater is a UX design consultant and chief evangelist of object oriented UX, a methodology that helps teams tackle complex design challenges. I...

Alla Weinberg on Work Culture

23 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Alla Weinberg helps teams and organizations improve the quality of relationships at work. She has a background in design, but now calls herself a ‘w...

Jeff Sussna on Customer Value Charting

09 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jeff Sussna is a consultant and author specialized in helping organizations deliver software more effectively. This is Jeff’s second appearance on t...

Kat Vellos on Friendship

25 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Kat Vellos on FriendshipKat Vellos uses her background in experience design to empower people to learn, grow, and thrive. She’s written two books on...

Matt LeMay on One Page / One Hour

11 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Matt LeMay is a product management consultant and author. He’s a co-founder and partner at Sudden Compass, which helps companies reconnect with thei...

Jesse James Garrett on Leadership and Information Architecture

28 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jesse James Garret is a renowned leader in the user experience design field. He’s a co-founder of the influential UX consultancy Adaptive Path and a...

Ben Mosior on Wardley Maps

13 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In his consulting practice, Ben Mosior teaches Wardley Mapping, a tool for visualizing strategic intent. In this conversation, we dive into Wardley Ma...