Insights Unlocked
Rethinking UX with the many “Many Wizards of Oz” approach with Sam Howard
16 Dec 2024
Episode web page: https://bit.ly/3OQ2f80 ----------------------- Rate Insights Unlocked and write a review If you appreciate Insights Unlocked, please give it a rating and a review. Visit Apple Podcasts, pull up the Insights Unlocked show page and scroll to the bottom of the screen. Below the trailers, you'll find Ratings and Reviews. Click on a star rating. Scroll down past the highlighted review and click on "Write a Review." You'll make my day. ----------------------- Show Notes In this episode of Insights Unlocked, host Blair Fraser sits down with Dr. Sam Howard, Head of UX at Curio, to explore how AI is transforming the way people consume news. From Sam’s unique career journey—from academia to consulting to leading UX at a forward-thinking company—to Curio's mission of fixing fragmented and overwhelming news experiences, this conversation dives into the heart of user-centric design and AI innovation. Discover how Curio balances cutting-edge AI with trusted sources to deliver meaningful solutions, the challenges of creating archetypes in a rapidly evolving tech landscape, and why robust discovery research is more critical than ever. If you’re a UX researcher, designer, or product leader navigating the intersection of user experience and AI, this episode is packed with actionable insights and forward-thinking strategies. Key Themes & Highlights: The Power of User-Centered Design: Why embedding user insights at the start of product design leads to better outcomes. Sam’s approach to understanding and addressing user frustrations with traditional news platforms. AI in UX Research: How Curio blends AI personalization with reliable sources to maintain trust. The "Many Wizards of Oz" method: A groundbreaking approach to simulating AI experiences in user research. Tackling Behavioral Archetypes: Why Curio focuses on early adopters and behavioral archetypes instead of rigid personas. Addressing news avoidance and user anxiety through design thinking. Driving Impact in Organizations: How to align qualitative user research with quantitative data to influence stakeholders. Using video storytelling as a tool for fostering empathy and buy-in from business leaders. Future of UX and AI: The need to evolve UX methodologies for non-linear, AI-driven user journeys. Balancing transparency and value when communicating AI’s role to end users.
Full Episode
Welcome back to the Insights Unlocked podcast. In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Sam Howard, head of UX at Curio, to explore how AI is transforming UX research and design. Sam introduces his Many Wizards of Oz methodology, a new approach to testing dynamic AI-driven experiences, and shares insights on blending innovation with user-centered design.
If you're passionate about creating products users truly love, this episode is for you. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Insights Unlocked, an original podcast from User Testing, where we bring you candid conversations and stories with the thinkers, doers, and builders behind some of the most successful digital products and experiences in the world, from concept to execution.
Welcome to the Insights Unlocked podcast. I'm Nathan Isaacs, Senior Manager for Content Production and User Testing. And joining us today as host is User Testing's Blair Frazier, a staff product designer here at User Testing and based in our Edinburgh offices. Welcome, Blair. Hey, everyone. Nice to be here.
And our guest today is Dr. Sam Howard, head of UX at Curio, which is an AI-driven, personal, up-to-date news companion anchored in trusted sources. He's a veteran researcher with stops at The Zone Group, John Lewis & Partners, and UserFi. Welcome to the show, Sam.
Thank you very much for having me. Great to be here. Sam, thank you for joining us today. So, you know, as we get started, I, of course, would just love for you to tell us a little bit more about You. your journey into the world of UX research and design, and as well as a little bit more about Curio and the sort of work that you're doing there.
Yeah, so my journey into the field, I guess, goes back as far as school, really. I studied psychology when I was in sixth form at school and really just bought into this entire concept of understanding and digging into why we do the things that we do. And I studied psychology at university from there and managed to take a particular module called the psychology of digital technology.
And it was just exactly what I wanted to do. As soon as I started digging into that as a kind of territory of psychology, before I even knew about human computer interaction or anything like that, I just saw that this was something I could really, really get stuck into.
So from there, worked out how to go about doing that and ended up doing a PhD at the same university, the University of Nottingham. And PhDs are very, very niche in particular. So I did a PhD looking at the impact of new digital technologies on medical devices. Did that for kind of four years. Loved doing the research, but found the process of doing it in academia quite slow.
So I realized that I wanted to kind of move into a much more kind of fast paced environment where I could really, really, you know, see how this kind of research works. impacts and influences the products that we actually are using on an everyday basis.
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