User Defenders – UX Design & Personal Growth · Jason Ogle

Live Recording at An Event Apart Denver with Luke Wroblewski, Cassie McDaniel and Chris Coyier

·1 hr 4 min·5 clips

Luke reveals the three-step framework to discover your true calling in design and life.

A live audience changes the room right away. Jason Ogle opens with the usual User Defenders superhero frame, then admits this recording knocked him out of radio mode and into something more exposed. The nerves are part of the appeal. Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman invited him to record at An Event Apart, and he treats the conference with obvious affection. The guests get a big entrance too. Cassie McDaniel, Chris Coyier, and Luke Wroblewski are introduced as bad design Avengers, which fits the show's habit of turning design craft into character work. Once everyone settles in, the conversation stays loose. Jokes about podcast advice, editing power, and grizzled experience keep the career talk from hardening into a lecture. One audience question asks what designers should learn next. The answers dodge the neat tool list, partly because everyone in the room seems to know how quickly those lists go stale. Chris gives the question a better shape. He talks about a young relative trying to enter technology and how asking about interests did not quite get there. Calling is the better word. His version starts with what someone is good at, checks whether other people value that ability, then asks whether it helps anyone. That lands. Growth starts to feel less like chasing Webpack or the next named thing, and more like paying attention to where skill and usefulness overlap. Jason closes by pointing back to the audience's career questions in a field that keeps shifting. The video option makes the room feel a little more open. Still, the best part is hearing a host step outside his comfort zone, trust the guests, and let the live crowd sharpen the point.

As heard by us

A live UX panel that makes career advice feel sturdy and human.

Jason Ogle brings User Defenders live to An Event Apart, and Chris Coyier, Cassie McDaniel, and Luke Wroblewski help turn a nervous radio-style opening into a wider conversation about what to learn, how to find a calling, and how to stay useful in an exciting, challenging,…

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Why you'd press play

You get a live UX panel from An Event Apart that pushes back on Webpack and AR/VR buzzwords.

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