Jan 17 2025 33 mins 4
Leah Buley and Joe Natoli
Both UX and content professionals routinely find themselves on teams where they are the sole practitioner of their craft.
Leah Buley and Joe Natoli recently revised "The UX Team of One" (use code ELLESS15 at checkout to get 15% off through then end of February) to share their pragmatic take on solo UX practice, deftly balancing the application of human-centered research insights with the need to show the business value of UX work.
We talked about:
the origins of their book, "The UX Team of One," in Leah's early UX work at Adaptive Path
the crucial role of content in UX
Joe's take on the importance of balancing user needs and business needs in UX practice
Leah's approach to showing the value of UX and research work
the challenges of practicing UX in organizations populated with complicated and complex human beings
their pragmatic approach that emphasizes methods over frameworks and that can adapt to different organizational approaches to UX
the power of sharing design artifacts with stakeholders who have differents points of view
their take on the benefits of collaborative teams over silo-ed functional organization
Leah's take on the importance of always talking to customers and getting real experiences in front of real people
Joe's take on the importance of figuring out what actually needs to be done over trying to be an omnipotent UX expert
Leah's bio
In her 20+ years in the user experience field, Leah Buley has held just about every role in the stack: front end engineer, user interface designer, information architect, researcher, strategist, and market analyst covering the UX field itself. Her #1 takeaway from all those experiences is that all great products start from great human-centered insights.
Leah’s experience spans agencies, startups, and Fortune 100 companies. She is currently a Sr. Director of Consumer Insights and User Research at Lovevery. She has previously held roles in user experience research, strategy, and design at Intuit, Invision, Adaptive Path, and Forrester.
She is a co-author of the book The User Experience Team of One, now in its second edition. While at Invision, Leah developed a body of research on design maturity that is widely used by organizations to benchmark and evolve their UX practices. Her research has been published in HBR, Forbes, Communication Arts, Tech.eu, and Information Age. Her talks and workshops at venues like SXSW, UX Week, and UX London have a reputation for being high-energy, hands on, and just a little bit quirky.
Connect with Leah online
LinkedIn
Joe's bio
Joe Natoli is a UX consultant, author and speaker — and a household name in UX and product design. For three decades, he’s advised, trained and empowered the UX, design and product development teams of some of the world’s largest organizations, from Fortune 100 companies to U.S. Government agencies and startups. He has published ten books — the most recent being the second edition of the bestselling The User Experience Team of One with Leah Buley for Rosenfeld Media — and is a regular keynote speaker and lecturer at industry conferences and corporate events across the globe.
Joe has also taught more than 350,000 students through his online courses and his own UX 365 Academy, at ux365academy.com, in addition to a private coaching practice.
Joe’s approach to improving product UX and design focuses on addressing systemic, personal dynamics issues across individuals, teams and organizations: combating impostor syndrome and increasing self-confidence, improving communication and collaboration, addressing fear and dysfunction driving poor management practices and redesigning inappropriate, counterproductive processes.
Both UX and content professionals routinely find themselves on teams where they are the sole practitioner of their craft.
Leah Buley and Joe Natoli recently revised "The UX Team of One" (use code ELLESS15 at checkout to get 15% off through then end of February) to share their pragmatic take on solo UX practice, deftly balancing the application of human-centered research insights with the need to show the business value of UX work.
We talked about:
the origins of their book, "The UX Team of One," in Leah's early UX work at Adaptive Path
the crucial role of content in UX
Joe's take on the importance of balancing user needs and business needs in UX practice
Leah's approach to showing the value of UX and research work
the challenges of practicing UX in organizations populated with complicated and complex human beings
their pragmatic approach that emphasizes methods over frameworks and that can adapt to different organizational approaches to UX
the power of sharing design artifacts with stakeholders who have differents points of view
their take on the benefits of collaborative teams over silo-ed functional organization
Leah's take on the importance of always talking to customers and getting real experiences in front of real people
Joe's take on the importance of figuring out what actually needs to be done over trying to be an omnipotent UX expert
Leah's bio
In her 20+ years in the user experience field, Leah Buley has held just about every role in the stack: front end engineer, user interface designer, information architect, researcher, strategist, and market analyst covering the UX field itself. Her #1 takeaway from all those experiences is that all great products start from great human-centered insights.
Leah’s experience spans agencies, startups, and Fortune 100 companies. She is currently a Sr. Director of Consumer Insights and User Research at Lovevery. She has previously held roles in user experience research, strategy, and design at Intuit, Invision, Adaptive Path, and Forrester.
She is a co-author of the book The User Experience Team of One, now in its second edition. While at Invision, Leah developed a body of research on design maturity that is widely used by organizations to benchmark and evolve their UX practices. Her research has been published in HBR, Forbes, Communication Arts, Tech.eu, and Information Age. Her talks and workshops at venues like SXSW, UX Week, and UX London have a reputation for being high-energy, hands on, and just a little bit quirky.
Connect with Leah online
Joe's bio
Joe Natoli is a UX consultant, author and speaker — and a household name in UX and product design. For three decades, he’s advised, trained and empowered the UX, design and product development teams of some of the world’s largest organizations, from Fortune 100 companies to U.S. Government agencies and startups. He has published ten books — the most recent being the second edition of the bestselling The User Experience Team of One with Leah Buley for Rosenfeld Media — and is a regular keynote speaker and lecturer at industry conferences and corporate events across the globe.
Joe has also taught more than 350,000 students through his online courses and his own UX 365 Academy, at ux365academy.com, in addition to a private coaching practice.
Joe’s approach to improving product UX and design focuses on addressing systemic, personal dynamics issues across individuals, teams and organizations: combating impostor syndrome and increasing self-confidence, improving communication and collaboration, addressing fear and dysfunction driving poor management practices and redesigning inappropriate, counterproductive processes.
