Summary
What happens when your craft and your career shift and you have to adapt quickly? How do you take what you’ve learned into uncharted territory and forge new skills and new relationships? From working behind the scenes in public radio production, Emily Eagle pivoted to user experience, eventually working (also behind the scenes) on enterprise software for omni-channel retail. Public radio ethos has come in handy in the enterprise space, where the practice of listening carefully, breaking a problem into smaller parts, and telling the story of the bigger picture all help to understand complexity and build empathy for customers and employees.
Key Insights
-
•
Storytelling skills from public radio can be effectively transferred to enterprise UX design.
-
•
Empathy and deep listening move beyond sympathy to respect and reflection in both journalism and UX.
-
•
Obstacles, whether personal or systemic, can serve as invitations for growth and career transformation.
-
•
Collaborating closely with domain experts like Leslie Brown builds trust and leads to better problem understanding.
-
•
Recognizing and analyzing user workarounds reveals hidden obstacles and opportunities for design improvements.
-
•
Setting clear context and scenes is crucial for UX when users have no opportunity to rewind or undo actions.
-
•
The principle of murdering your darlings—cutting favorite but unnecessary parts—applies both to storytelling and design.
-
•
Community college can offer diverse and supportive environments for career pivots with peers overcoming adversity.
-
•
Enterprise UX design focuses on enabling users to successfully overcome challenges rather than persuading or selling.
-
•
Acknowledgment and encouragement from mentors can be pivotal in helping individuals discover new career paths.
Notable Quotes
"I thrive on learning about how people overcome obstacles."
"Truly listening can push us beyond empathy to respect and reflection."
"When you encounter an obstacle, how do you respond? Maybe it’s an invitation to grow."
"In public radio, your listener can’t rewind. We have to design for thoughtful user progression."
"Sometimes we have to murder our darlings—let go of favorite parts to let the story or design grow."
"I felt like a journalist pretending to be a designer."
"Every workaround is a mini story of somebody overcoming an obstacle."
"We have the Big C and the Little C: our external customers and our salespeople using the tools every day."
"It’s the worst thing when someone feels dumb in front of a customer because the tools don’t support them."
"When you’re talking, it’s easier to learn something new, but if you’re shy and don’t talk, you don’t learn anything."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"People make assumptions about what we can achieve through no fault of our own."
Jess GrecoClaiming your power: Practical tools for amplifying your unique voice
March 13, 2025
"Every bee understands the same purpose — the survival of the hive for winter."
Mariesa LenzWhat Beekeeping Taught me about Product Teams
October 29, 2025
"If distress does happen in sessions, it’s easier to talk through it using humor or a personable approach."
Samuel Proulx Laur BaekInclusive Research: Debunking Myths and Getting Started
March 12, 2025
"Audacity means being willing to do things that seem dumb or risky because that’s how you innovate."
Deanna Washington Tim Allen Jeff Courcelle John Maeda Matt Raw Erica TjaderScaling Success: Paving the Path from DesignOps to VP
October 4, 2023
"We found out there wasn’t just one best in class solution and needed a hybrid approach."
Anna AvrekhUser Research, Design, and Product - A Love Story
March 11, 2021
"De-risking sessions gave disgruntled stakeholders a forum to voice fears before larger workshops."
Dharani PereraThe mandala of service design: unlocking alignment and action through service design
November 20, 2025
"An ad hoc critique is best when guard is down, it’s quick, time-sensitive, and helps share early to avoid costly late feedback."
Joseph MeersmanSweating the Pixel: Scaling Quality through Critique
June 10, 2021
"The fly on the wall approach is a myth; interaction between filmmaker and people is what makes documentary film interesting."
Bas Raijmakers, PhD (RCA) Charley Scull Prabhas PokharelWhat Design Research can Learn from Documentary Filmmaking
March 11, 2022
"Taking a coaching approach supports the other person’s discovery and offers the greatest possibility for change."
Laura WeissThere is No Playbook: Leader as Coach During Challenging Times
April 26, 2024
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
What role do templates play in structuring research reports for better repository management and AI parsing?
How can firsthand client involvement in field research contribute to long-term advocacy and support for ethnographic methods?
Why is play and hands-on experimentation critical when teaching design and AI to new learners?