20 Must-Listen UX Design Podcasts

There is no shortage of user experience and design resources to learn from. From reading UX blogs to learning lessons from other UX designers to watching TED Talks, the options are plentiful. One additional resource to add to the mix is podcasts, which 76.8% of people listen to for over seven hours weekly. 

Fortunately, user experience boosts a rich library of podcasts that you can explore. There are so many, in fact, that the options can seem overwhelming. To get you started, we’ve curated a list of UX design podcasts that are a must-listen.

Without further delay, let’s dig into the 20 best podcasts for UX designers.

1. The Crazy One

Hosted by Stephen Gates, an award-winning designer who’s currently the head design evangelist at InVision, The Crazy One isn’t a podcast to miss. Each episode varies between 30 minutes to an hour in duration, with Gates sharing actionable insights from his experience leading creative teams.

The podcast doesn’t revolve around user experience alone, though. If anything, its scope expands wider to cover career tips, leadership, and creativity–elements that can enrich an aspiring designer’s knowledge significantly.

2. UX Podcast

UX Podcast is a bimonthly webcast that pairs entertaining and informative discussions between the hosts with interviews with outside guests. UX Podcast has been in production since 2011, so it is a perfect podcast for binge-listening.

The hosts, human-centric design consultant Per Axbom and James Royal-Lawson, also a design consultant, present insightful episodes covering digital design, tech, and everything in between, including UX strategy, lean UX, and story mapping.

3. UX Like Us

Described as a “podcast for the user experience community,” including researchers, strategists, designers, and analysts, UX Like Us is another must-listen. The hosts, Larry King, a senior manager in user experience, and Roman Bercot, a design strategist at Experian, are a humorous duo sharing thought-provoking opinions on design. Each episode extends to almost an hour, so listening to this podcast equates to an hour well spent.

4. User Defenders

User Defenders is a widely appreciated podcast in the design field, heading toward the launch of its seventh season. It is hosted by design leader Jason Ogle and features some of the most prominent industry names, such as Sarah Doody and Laura Klein, who is also on our list of UX designers to follow on Twitter. Together with such incredible guests, Jason creates insightful episodes covering a wide range of design aspects.

5. What Is Wrong With UX 

This podcast is as interesting as its name sounds. It comes from notable UXers Laura Klein, author of “UX for Lean Startups” and principal at Users Know, and Kate Rutter, who is a visual thinker and UX specialist for startups. Their recordings offer a unique take on user experience design as the hosts share a drink each episode and poke fun at what’s wrong in the design world.

Additionally, they also share stories from their careers, ensuring that each episode is packed with practical advice for designers. What more can a rookie designer who wishes to have a future in UX ask for?

6. The XD Podcast

The XD Podcast includes host Tony Daussat sharing his experiences as well as his interviews with other design mavens. Tony is a design strategist at Bottle Rocket, and his podcast is relatively new, having launched in December 2018.

Even so, it covers interesting aspects of UX design, including the human element of design, the significance of ethical design, and dealing with impostor syndrome, among other things. Each episode is approximately 30 minutes long, so you can learn a lot in just half an hour.

7. Design Details 

True to its name, Design Details revolves around the intricacies of the design process and culture. The show comes from GitHub designer Brian Lovin and the design lead at YouTube Gaming, Marshall Bock.

Each week, there is a new, roughly hour-long episode on an interesting design topic. Some episodes are also specifically dedicated to answering listeners’ questions. Recent episode “Is Ego Getting in the Way of Accessibility?” tackles questions regarding the current state of accessibility in product design and the showdown between checkboxes and toggles.

8. UI Breakfast Podcast

The UI Breakfast is hosted by Jane Portman, a Russian UI/UX consultant. Jane’s podcast invites industry experts in as guests to share their insights and expertise on various UI and UX matters, products, trends, marketing, and more. In fact, each guest tends to be an expert in a particular aspect of UX design and research. There is a new episode every week that is no longer than 45 minutes long and is mainly limited to an interview format.

9. Google Design Podcasts

There’s no better way to learn than by walking in the footsteps of design leaders, which makes Google’s design podcasts incredible additions to this list. Both podcasts by Google, Method and Design Notes, take listeners through the life of designers at Google. 

Method presents career journeys of designers at Google as well as sharing helpful tips, such as the phases of applying for a design job at the tech giant. On the other hand, Design Notes dives into conversations with designers who work in different creative fields. 

10. The Hacking UI Podcast

This podcast comes from designers and developers Sagi Shrieber and David Tintner. Both are also productivity enthusiasts and bloggers, so they discuss all of their interests, from UX design to achieving more in less time, during their show. 

Shrieber and Tintner also often invite influential names in the design field. Some interesting guests include design leaders from Google, Facebook, and Adobe, to name a few. So each (approximately) hour-long episode is an educational ride with great insights for UXers.

11. Adventures in Design

If you are looking for a daily podcast, then Adventures in Design may be for you. It is released Monday through Friday and features host, designer, and illustrator Mike Brickey talking about digital design-related topics. 

Since this is a daily podcast that has been up and running since 2012, it has a rich archive that you can explore for gathering solid advice on design, collaboration, goal-setting, and so on. Broadly, you can check out the general, art design, music business, and graphic design gossip categories.

12. UX Radio

Another podcast that you can consume quickly is the UX Radio podcast, which has a short but resourceful library of 31 episodes. The episodes share helpful insight in under an hour and are centered around user experience, design, and information architecture.

The co-hosts, Lara Fedoroff, director of product strategy at Philosophie, and Chris Chandler, partner at Philosophie, bring expert guests on board to share useful resources.

13. Wireframe by Adobe

Adobe’s podcast is a snack version of a podcast series with only nine episodes lasting through March 2019, each of them about 20 minutes long. You can consume this podcast on the go while gaining brilliant insights into what makes for good design, brought to you by Adobe and Gimlet Creative. The best part is that this webcast, hosted by blogger and graphic designer Khoi Vinh, is suitable for all designers, including UX/UI and graphic designers.

14. Boagworld UX Show

The Boagworld UX Show is an award-winning podcast that comes out every Thursday and discusses varying aspects of user experience and digital design and strategy. It is a well-rounded podcast not limited to interviews only, but packing in reviews, tools, news, and practical tips as well. 

In fact, its backlog of over 300 episodes is a treasure trove of information for UXers and anyone interested in web design. Not to mention the host, Paul Boag, user experience strategist and author of “User Experience Revolution,” is a man with extensive experience and a lot to share.

15. Designer Vs Developer

This is another short podcast, with a collection of 25 episodes, each one no longer than 20 minutes. The host, Mustafa Kurtuldu, senior design advocate and UX lead for Google.dev, aims to solve the larger challenges that the UX industry faces.

To this end, he brings other designers from Google on board, and together they dive straight into the meat of the matter, giving you a fast-moving episode of credible opinions. What’s more, you can also get a video version of the podcast episodes on YouTube.

16. Mixed Methods

Coming from Aryel Cianflone, a senior UX researcher at LinkedIn, Mixed Methods is a must-listen podcast for curious minds interested in learning and testing all things user experience research. Each episode, which is about an hour in length, includes an interview with a credible industry name from a leading company like Google, Airbnb, IDEO, and Atlassian.

17. The Design Review Podcast

Although no longer in production, The Design Review Podcast is a gem that deserves to be revisited. Episodes are about an hour long and are dedicated to reviewing a product and dissecting its user experience design. The takeaways from the UX analysis of the products under review are a phenomenal resource for new UX designers or students.

Additionally, the podcast is a lively and educational discussion between hosts Jonathan Shariat, the co-author of “Tragic Design” and a product designer at Project Ronin, and Chris Liu, the interaction design lead at Mercedes-Benz R&D North America. 

18. Metric—The User Experience Podcast

This podcast comes from the user experience development lead at WhereByUs, Michael Schofield, and a software design engineer at Leidos, Tim Broadwater. The 30-minute episodes include a wide range of topics centered around design, strategy, and user experience. Not only does the show cover UX news but it also digs out how people enter and work in the UX field.

19. ShopTalk

ShopTalk is a live web design and development podcast by Dave Rupert, lead developer at Paravel, and Chris Coyier, a web designer and developer. In each episode of the show, which comes out every Monday, the hosting duo welcomes a guest to answer questions that the listeners submit. With more than 360 episodes already in the show’s archive, you can learn a lot from listening to this podcast.

20. The UX Intern

The UX Intern series is only 13 episodes long, each lasting for about an hour and featuring designer Wesley Nobel interviewing seasoned designers from a UX intern’s perspective. This makes the podcast highly valuable for aspiring UXers as the show answers exactly the type of questions that they typically are wrestling with. 

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No matter where you are in your UX learning journey, you should find some helpful resources on this list. All of these podcasts tackle thought-provoking UX-related topics, share lessons and actionable advice from interviews with experts, and keep you looped into all the most important industry developments.

For more UX-related career information, check out these resources:

• How to Become a UX Designer
• 25 UX Design Interview Questions—and Answers
• How to Get Your First UX Design Job, a 40-page ebook packed with insight from industry experts.
• The UX Career Track, a flexible, mentor-led course with a job guarantee.

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