Last week, I released an episode that was a little unusual for Mixed Methods (a podcast about the how’s and why’s of UX research). Instead of talking to a user researcher, I had the opportunity to speak with Thomas McConkie, a mediation teacher as well as the creator of Mindfulness+ and faculty at Pacific Integral.

Thomas’s story feels like a real-life version of 7 Years in Tibet. He spent over a decade living in China working as a human rights activist and deepening his meditation practice. …

Aryel: Let’s start with a brief introduction.

David: My name is David Sirkin, I’m an engineer and an interaction design researcher at Stanford.

Aryel: How did you get into that? How long have you been there?

David: I arrived at Stanford in 2007 as a graduate student. I finished in 2011 and have been working there as researcher since.

I studied engineering and design as an undergraduate and then got drawn away to do other things along life’s paths and found myself missing doing more creative design work.

I noticed that Stanford was starting a new design school, the d.school…

concept validation APPLIED

If you’re reading this article, you are probably the type of person that has a ton of ideas — some bad, some better, and maybe even occasionally a great one. But how can you tell them apart without investing a ton of time and resources into building out your vision? A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with veteran UX designer and researcher Sarah Doody and discuss what she has found to be most effective when doing concept validation, aka figuring out if your idea is worth it. If you want to listen…