Claim OwnershipThe Design Psychologist | Psychology for UX, Product, Service, Instructional, Interior, and Game Designers
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Welcome to The Design Psychologist, a podcast where we explore the intersection of psychology and design. The show is hosted by Thomas Watkins, a design psychologist who has spent years applying behavioral science principles to the creation of digital products.
We sit down with a variety of experts who apply psychology in different ways to the design of the world around us. Thomas uses his expertise to guide conversations that provide practical advice while illuminating the theory behind why designs succeed.
Tune in if you are a design practitioner who seeks to understand your work on a deeper level and craft experiences that are intuitive, effective, and delightful.
32 Episodes
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Send us Fan Mail What makes a product feel not just usable, but desirable? In this episode of The Design Psychologist, Thomas Watkins talks with Marty Gage, co-author of User Experience Research: Discover What Customers Really Want, about how teams can move beyond guessing and uncover the experiences people actually desire. Marty shares a practical framework for connecting emotional needs to product strategy: desired emotional states, benefits, features, and sensory cues. They discuss why gre...
Send us Fan Mail How many users do you actually need for a usability study? In this episode of The Design Psychologist, Thomas Watkins talks with Laura Faulkner about one of the most repeated ideas in UX research: that five users are enough. Laura explains why that rule of thumb can be useful in some situations, but dangerous when teams treat it like a law. They discuss sample size, research risk, stakeholder alignment, and why the real question is not “How many users?” but “What decision are...
Send us Fan Mail What does it actually mean to say a product is usable? In this episode of The Design Psychologist, Thomas Watkins talks with Phil Kortum about the System Usability Scale, or SUS: one of the most widely used tools for measuring usability. They discuss why this 10-item questionnaire has lasted for decades, what makes a usability metric trustworthy, and how researchers can use SUS scores to compare products, track improvement, and communicate usability in a shared language. The ...
Send us Fan Mail How do you know whether a product idea is worth building before you spend months designing and developing it? In this episode of The Design Psychologist, Thomas Watkins talks with Jaime Levy, author of UX Strategy, about how designers, researchers, founders, and product leaders can move beyond opinion and make a stronger evidence-based case for what to build. Jaime explains why strategy is not about magically predicting the future, but about systematically reducing risk. She ...
Send us Fan Mail Season 2 of The Design Psychologist is here. After exploring the foundations of psychology across human factors, UX, instructional design, service design, game design, and more in Season 1, this season takes the conversation even further. We’re asking some honest—and sometimes difficult—questions about where design psychology is today, the challenges professionals are facing in their careers, and how we can use design to create a better future. Throughout Season 2, we’ll expl...
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