James Utley's guest appearances

James Utley

Custom Made

Scott Harper

Chris Curran

Christopher O'Donnell

Jordan Bell

Andrew Turner

Ted Howard

John Hicks

Jonah Staw

Justin Marshall

Claire Burge

Mark Haidar

Tyler Nicholson

Dave Copps

Doug Platts

Alex Jacoby

OwlTail

This is episode #38 of Custom Made and this week I’m joined again by James Utley, Senior Manager and Product Designer here at Dialexa.James is an experienced designer skilled in Information Design, Logo Design, User Experience, Branding &amp; Identity, and Typography with a history of working in the information technology and services industry.James has joined me on previous episodes of Custom Made where he was discussing how to scale design across hundreds of products with Design Systems, how to navigate the politics of user research, and how to use lead design research to get to the “why” of your product. Be sure to check out those episodes once you have finished this one.Last week on Custom Made, I had Rowdy Howell on the show sharing some of the major themes that were being discussed at Strata Data Conference which he recently attended in New York.This week James had just returned from Barcelona where he attended the Service Design Days conference, and I managed to grab some time with him to hear some of the main topics being discussed there.During this weeks episode, we explore a range of topics such as:- How service design brings humanity back into the products and services we create- Design that ignores the ecosystem is doomed to fail- Service designers need to have the ability to both zoom in and out of the experience, and how sometimes you need to go slow to move fast- And how our work should shape the tools we utilize, rather than letting the tools shape the workBe sure to check out the show notes at dialexa.com for this episode where I will include links to details on the Service Design Days conference.Be sure to tweet at me (https://twitter.com/dougplatts) and let me know what you think of the show.Follow Dialexa on:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dialexa/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dialexa/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dialexaSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/custom-made-dialexaiTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/custom-made/id1332213517?mt=2 Player.fm: https://player.fm/series/custom-madeOvercast:  https://overcast.fm/itunes1332213517/custom-madeTwitter: https://twitter.com/dialexaMedium: https://medium.com/back-to-the-napkinPodcast: https://by.dialexa.com/topic/custom-madeYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DialexaSubscribe to our weekly newsletter for our latest content and top weekly reads here: https://by.dialexa.com/newsletter-signup

This is episode #38 of Custom Made and this week I’m joined again by James Utley, Senior Manager and Product Designer here at Dialexa. James is an experienced designer skilled in Information Design, Logo Design, User Experience, Branding &amp; Identity, and Typography with a history of working in the information technology and services industry. James has joined me on previous episodes of Custom Made where he was discussing how to scale design across hundreds of products with Design Systems, how to navigate the politics of user research, and how to use lead design research to get to the “why” of your product. Be sure to check out those episodes once you have finished this one. Last week on Custom Made, I had Rowdy Howell on the show sharing some of the major themes that were being discussed at Strata Data Conference which he recently attended in New York. This week James had just returned from Barcelona where he attended the Service Design Days conference, and I managed to grab some time with him to hear some of the main topics being discussed there. During this weeks episode, we explore a range of topics such as: - How service design brings humanity back into the products and services we create - Design that ignores the ecosystem is doomed to fail - Service designers need to have the ability to both zoom in and out of the experience, and how sometimes you need to go slow to move fast - And how our work should shape the tools we utilize, rather than letting the tools shape the work Be sure to check out the show notes at <a href="http://dialexa.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">dialexa.com</a> for this episode where I will include links to details on the Service Design Days conference. Be sure to tweet at me (<a href="https://twitter.com/dougplatts" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/dougplatts</a>) and let me know what you think of the show. Follow Dialexa on: Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dialexa/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/dialexa/</a> Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/dialexa/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/dialexa/</a> LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/dialexa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/company/dialexa</a> Soundcloud: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/custom-made-dialexa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://soundcloud.com/custom-made-dialexa</a> iTunes: <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/custom-made/id1332213517?mt=2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/custom-made/id1332213517?mt=2</a> <a href="http://Player.fm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Player.fm</a>: <a href="https://player.fm/series/custom-made" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://player.fm/series/custom-made</a> Overcast: <a href="https://overcast.fm/itunes1332213517/custom-made" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://overcast.fm/itunes1332213517/custom-made</a> Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/dialexa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/dialexa</a> Medium: <a href="https://medium.com/back-to-the-napkin" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://medium.com/back-to-the-napkin</a> Podcast: <a href="https://by.dialexa.com/topic/custom-made" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://by.dialexa.com/topic/custom-made</a> YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/Dialexa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/c/Dialexa</a> Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for our latest content and top weekly reads here: <a href="https://by.dialexa.com/newsletter-signup" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://by.dialexa.com/newsletter-signup</a>

CM38: The Top Themes and Insights From Service Design Days w/ James Utley

Sarah Reid

This is episode #008 and today I’m joined for another episode by Dialexa’s Head of Design Research, Sarah Reid, and Design Architect, James Utley.At Dialexa we have the opportunity to work with a range of clients from funded startups to enterprise organizations - and a lot of these companies are looking to bring a new product to market. Whether that is a consumer-facing product, or a product to improve business operations, there is always the need to get buy-in from across your organization and from potential users for a product that doesn’t yet exist in any form.And that is why this week we are talking about how effective storytelling can unify a product vision, build empathy, validate ideas, and communicate your product value to key stakeholders and users.Let me go back a bit in time a bit, say back to sometime between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C., to the Lascaux Caves in the Pyrenees Mountains in southern France where the earliest form of storytelling has been recorded. On the cave walls, someone drew a variety of animals and one image of a human being. When closely examined, this mural of sorts actually follows a very simplistic series of events. It tells of rituals performed and hunting practices. It tells a story.Effective storytelling has been key to helping listeners image and feel what the speaker was describing, and it is as valuable today as it was back in that cave in southern France.In a previous episode I spoke with Dialexa’s Chief Creative Officer, Steven Ray, on the value of design in product development - and how if a picture paints a thousand words, then a product sketch is more powerful than a feature list.Well if you are even earlier in the product development process where you are trying to get alignment on your product vision, gain budget and resources to start developing, and communicating with early potential users - then you need to be effective in how you are telling the story about this new product.During this episode we are exploring what are the steps to successful storytelling, what techniques can you use to structure your story - for example using the hero’s journey framework or the 5 e’s framework (Entice, Enter, Engage, Exit, and Extend), and how to really leverage personas during your product’s design and development phases.And throughout this episode, Sarah and James share a number great resources which I’ll be sure to include in the show notes for this episode on Dialexa.com.I hope you are enjoying the show and are getting a lot from our episodes each week. If you are, can you hit subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, and everywhere else you listen to Custom Made, it helps other listeners find us and I’d love to hear what you think. You can also tweet me (https://twitter.com/dougplatts) and let me know what you think of the show.Follow Dialexa on:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dialexa/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dialexa/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dialexaSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/custom-made-dialexaiTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/custom-made/id1332213517?mt=2Twitter: https://twitter.com/dialexaMedium: https://medium.com/back-to-the-napkinPodcast: https://by.dialexa.com/topic/custom-madeYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DialexaSubscribe to our weekly newsletter for our latest content and top weekly reads here: https://by.dialexa.com/newsletter-signup

This is episode #008 and today I’m joined for another episode by Dialexa’s Head of Design Research, Sarah Reid, and Design Architect, James Utley. At Dialexa we have the opportunity to work with a range of clients from funded startups to enterprise organizations - and a lot of these companies are looking to bring a new product to market. Whether that is a consumer-facing product, or a product to improve business operations, there is always the need to get buy-in from across your organization and from potential users for a product that doesn’t yet exist in any form. And that is why this week we are talking about how effective storytelling can unify a product vision, build empathy, validate ideas, and communicate your product value to key stakeholders and users. Let me go back a bit in time a bit, say back to sometime between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C., to the Lascaux Caves in the Pyrenees Mountains in southern France where the earliest form of storytelling has been recorded. On the cave walls, someone drew a variety of animals and one image of a human being. When closely examined, this mural of sorts actually follows a very simplistic series of events. It tells of rituals performed and hunting practices. It tells a story. Effective storytelling has been key to helping listeners image and feel what the speaker was describing, and it is as valuable today as it was back in that cave in southern France. In a previous episode I spoke with Dialexa’s Chief Creative Officer, Steven Ray, on the value of design in product development - and how if a picture paints a thousand words, then a product sketch is more powerful than a feature list. Well if you are even earlier in the product development process where you are trying to get alignment on your product vision, gain budget and resources to start developing, and communicating with early potential users - then you need to be effective in how you are telling the story about this new product. During this episode we are exploring what are the steps to successful storytelling, what techniques can you use to structure your story - for example using the hero’s journey framework or the 5 e’s framework (Entice, Enter, Engage, Exit, and Extend), and how to really leverage personas during your product’s design and development phases. And throughout this episode, Sarah and James share a number great resources which I’ll be sure to include in the show notes for this episode on <a href="http://Dialexa.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dialexa.com</a>. I hope you are enjoying the show and are getting a lot from our episodes each week. If you are, can you hit subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, and everywhere else you listen to Custom Made, it helps other listeners find us and I’d love to hear what you think. You can also tweet me (<a href="https://twitter.com/dougplatts" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/dougplatts</a>) and let me know what you think of the show. Follow Dialexa on: Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dialexa/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/dialexa/</a> Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/dialexa/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/dialexa/</a> LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/dialexa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/company/dialexa</a> Soundcloud: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/custom-made-dialexa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://soundcloud.com/custom-made-dialexa</a> iTunes: <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/custom-made/id1332213517?mt=2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/custom-made/id1332213517?mt=2</a> Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/dialexa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/dialexa</a> Medium: <a href="https://medium.com/back-to-the-napkin" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://medium.com/back-to-the-napkin</a> Podcast: <a href="https://by.dialexa.com/topic/custom-made" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://by.dialexa.com/topic/custom-made</a> YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/Dialexa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/c/Dialexa</a> Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for our latest content and top weekly reads here: <a href="https://by.dialexa.com/newsletter-signup" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://by.dialexa.com/newsletter-signup</a>

CM08: Using effective storytelling to gain product alignment w/ James Utley & Sarah Reid

Successful products and sustainable companies are those that are built on user understanding intertwined with strong design and technical capabilities. This understanding ensures that products that are built are useful, usable and desirable. With that in mind, I'm joined by Dialexa's Head of Design Research, Sarah Reid, and Design Architect, James Utley, on this weeks episode of Custom Made.With Sarah and James as my guests, we discuss how, with the importance of getting products to market quicker, many companies are adopting a new approach to understanding their users to inform product design. This approach is called lean design research. Because a well built product with terrible design, is a bad product - and a well designed product that is poorly built is also a bad product.You need to place equal importance on the user experience design and the engineering (think Minimum Lovable Product over Minimum Viable Product) to make a product users love and that positively impacts your businessBefore you start building your product, and even before you start designing, it is critical to success to understand your users - this is design research. But it is not always necessary for this to take a year, 6 months or even less to understand them. There is a need to understand enough to move forward with a product, and then set up an approach to allow you to continually learn more about your user as your product is being designed, engineered, and even once it is live. Sarah and James have extensive experience working with startups and large enterprise organizations to help them understand their users, and design the best product that meets both user and business needs.During our discussion, we cover, what is lean design research, why it is important, and what are some of the techniques to bring this approach to your product development - and for anyone who has seen The Founder a film starring Michael Keaton which told the story of McDonald's. The scene where they are developing their speedy system of making the food with the kitchen staff in the basketball court is a great example of design research in action.Be sure to tweet at me https://twitter.com/dougplatts and let me know what you think of the show.Follow Dialexa on:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dialexa/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dialexa/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dialexaSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/custom-made-di...iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/c...Twitter: https://twitter.com/dialexaMedium: https://medium.com/back-to-the-napkinPodcast: https://by.dialexa.com/topic/custom-madeYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DialexaSubscribe to our weekly newsletter for our latest content and top weekly reads here: https://by.dialexa.com/newsletter-signup

Successful products and sustainable companies are those that are built on user understanding intertwined with strong design and technical capabilities. This understanding ensures that products that are built are useful, usable and desirable. With that in mind, I'm joined by Dialexa's Head of Design Research, Sarah Reid, and Design Architect, James Utley, on this weeks episode of Custom Made. With Sarah and James as my guests, we discuss how, with the importance of getting products to market quicker, many companies are adopting a new approach to understanding their users to inform product design. This approach is called lean design research. Because a well built product with terrible design, is a bad product - and a well designed product that is poorly built is also a bad product. You need to place equal importance on the user experience design and the engineering (think Minimum Lovable Product over Minimum Viable Product) to make a product users love and that positively impacts your business Before you start building your product, and even before you start designing, it is critical to success to understand your users - this is design research. But it is not always necessary for this to take a year, 6 months or even less to understand them. There is a need to understand enough to move forward with a product, and then set up an approach to allow you to continually learn more about your user as your product is being designed, engineered, and even once it is live. Sarah and James have extensive experience working with startups and large enterprise organizations to help them understand their users, and design the best product that meets both user and business needs. During our discussion, we cover, what is lean design research, why it is important, and what are some of the techniques to bring this approach to your product development - and for anyone who has seen The Founder a film starring Michael Keaton which told the story of McDonald's. The scene where they are developing their speedy system of making the food with the kitchen staff in the basketball court is a great example of design research in action. Be sure to tweet at me <a href="https://twitter.com/dougplatts" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/dougplatts</a> and let me know what you think of the show. Follow Dialexa on: Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dialexa/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/dialexa/</a> Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/dialexa/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/dialexa/</a> LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/dialexa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/company/dialexa</a> Soundcloud: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/custom-made-di" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://soundcloud.com/custom-made-di</a>... iTunes: <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/c" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/c</a>... Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/dialexa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/dialexa</a> Medium: <a href="https://medium.com/back-to-the-napkin" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://medium.com/back-to-the-napkin</a> Podcast: <a href="https://by.dialexa.com/topic/custom-made" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://by.dialexa.com/topic/custom-made</a> YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/Dialexa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/c/Dialexa</a> Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for our latest content and top weekly reads here: <a href="https://by.dialexa.com/newsletter-signup" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://by.dialexa.com/newsletter-signup</a>