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
"If you want to work with Hilton, you have to bring accessibility to the table like security and privacy."
Nicole Bergstrom Anna Cook Kate Kalcevich Saara Kamppari-MillerAccessibilityOps: Moving beyond “nice to have”
September 19, 2024
"Everything is an experiment."
Erin WeigelReal-world lessons to improve your conversion rates
June 26, 2024
"User research's value lies in linking user needs and pain points directly to business profit and loss."
Dr. Jamika D. Burge Nick Fine Alexandra Jayeun Lee Greg Nudelman Bo WangHow UX researchers can partner with (and not be replaced by) AI [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
August 31, 2023
"Design history files must document every design decision for FDA audits—it's far more rigorous than typical usability tests."
Daniel J. RosenbergDigital Medicine Design
September 26, 2019
"We had to push back on the idea that we could just use existing models without understanding our team’s needs."
Francesca Barrientos, PhDYou Need Your Own Definition of Design Maturity
June 8, 2022
"Accessibility often happens too late, as an afterthought, making updates costly and disconnected from lived experience."
Gabriela BarnevaOperationalizing Inclusive Design in Design Ops
September 11, 2025
"As researchers, we stand on the shoulders of many before us; attribution helps us honor that lineage and curiosity."
Eduardo Ortiz Robin Beers Rachael Dietkus, LCSW Bruce Gillespie Jess Greco Marieke McCloskey Renee ReidDay 3 Theme Panel
March 13, 2025
"Use whatever information is available in the tool. Views, downloads, and links in Slack channels are all helpful adoption metrics."
Gabrielle VerderberDocumentation Your Team Will Actually Use
October 3, 2023
"If we just decide to ignore demographics we're missing huge swaths of the participant experience and an opportunity to better serve our users."
Megan CamposWhat Did I Miss? The Hidden Costs of Deprioritizing Diversity in User Research
March 12, 2021
