Non-UX Podcasts for UX Inspiration
You can easily just Google “Best UX podcasts” and you’ll find a ton of recommendations out there. But I’m not going to talk about any UX podcasts.
And personally, I don’t listen to any UX podcasts. And here’s why — I read a lot of Medium articles (say whaaaat?), blogs, and scientific journals for my research fix. And during my commute to work, I like to learn things outside of my own field so that I can get inspiration for creative ideas. There’s a term for this, the “adjacent possible”, which basically means there’s potential for innovation in one area if you take inspiration from a different area. See what I’m gettin’ at?
So here are 6 podcasts that I listen to every day that may help take your UX thinking to the next level!
- 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter — BBC World Service
BOOM!! I’m going back to my roots on this one. A BIOLOGY podcast. If you didn’t know, my background was in biology. And this is such an amazing podcast; it’s from the BBC World Service so you know it’s going to be good. It’s about animals that have inspired human innovations.
After all, the most elegant designs in the universe come from mother nature. Think about it. There’s an episode on how the kingfisher inspired the Japanese bullet train design, how termites inspired a low-cost ventilation system, and how mosquitoes are teaching us about surgical needles.
There is a lot to learn about design from nature around us. So it’s important to remember sometimes our own roots.
2. Twenty Thousand Hertz — Defacto Sound
You ever wonder why some sounds are so recognizable? The Microsoft sound scape, the dissonant introduction to the THX Deep Note, and the distinctive 3-chime note of NBC Studios.
You immediately recognize these sounds of sonic branding; there’s a certain emotion that you associate with it, and there’s design work that goes into designing such sounds, including understanding the psychology of sounds, skeumorphism, for example. A high-quality production by Dallas Taylor on sounds and the history of sounds. A definitely must-listen.
3. Note to Self — WNYC Studios
I love this one. Manoush Zamorodi explores different questions relating to what life is like in a world that’s becoming more and more digital. Extremely relevant podcast done in an engaging way with a fun host (although I don’t know if there’s still a consistent schedule going with the show).
4. Hidden Brain — NPR
This is one of my favourite podcasts on psychology. Hosted by Chankar Vedantam, he “uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive our behaviour, choices, and relationships.” It has informative and relevant episodes that will leave you thinking and way more educated about yourself! This is a great podcast to understand ourselves better as human beings and tying that back to User Experience work.
5. Problem Solvers — Entrepreneur Media Inc.
This one is about business owners/CEOs and their stories about what they went through to get where they are now. And this is relevant to our UX work because we will face many problems at work, whether internal or external, customer-facing, user-facing, or stakeholder-facing, and many have to find a solution to do it.
6. How I Built This — NPR
Last but not least, one of my favourite podcasts in general: How I Built This, NPR by Guy Raz. Similar to the previous podcast, this one features stories from the entrepreneurs that built their respective brands like TOM’s shoes, Instagram, Warby Parky, AirBnb, and my favourite episode, which happens to be the first episode, SPANX by Sara Blakely! These innovators saw a problem in their lives or businesses and decided to build a movement around it. The stories are truly inspiring to me, because I resonate with some entrepreneurial spirit myself, too.
CONCLUSION
So if you’re looking for fresh podcast recommendations to give you inspiration for UX work, those are the ones I definitely encourage you to listen to. No one paid me to say this, I just genuinely love them because of the storytelling and the absolute brilliant work they put into it.
Comment down below if there’s any that piqued your interest, or if you have any recommendations for me or other fellow badass UX leaders!
Want to learn more?
If you’d like to become an expert in UX Design, Design Thinking, UI Design, or another related design topic, then consider to take an online UX course from the Interaction Design Foundation. For example, Design Thinking, Become a UX Designer from Scratch, Conducting Usability Testing or User Research — Methods and Best Practices. Good luck on your learning journey!
Thanks for reading! If you want to see more UX research-related content, consider subscribing to my YouTube channel, Zero to UX.
