Beyond UX Design

When Figma Was Just How We Worked // What Survives E01

A late-night DM from a listener named Chris asked me something I couldn’t answer: did I lose my identity as a designer? My team just went one hundred percent Cursor, no m

Source Confusion: Why Your Ideas Get Remembered Under Someone Else’s Name

We remember what we learned but lose track of where it came from. I dig into source confusion, the memory quirk that quietly decides who gets credit on your team, whose r

What Survives: When AI Comes for Your Design Work (Season 1 Trailer)

At the end of April, my design team dropped Figma. As of May first, we've been one hundred percent in Cursor. Then a friend asked me if I'd lost my identity as a designer

Anchoring Effect: Stop Letting the First Draft Define the Whole Project

Whoever puts the first number, the first draft, or the first design in front of the team quietly decides where everyone else ends up. This week I dig into why anchoring b

What Reinventing Your Career (Twice) Actually Looks Like with Chris Nguyen

Jeremy catches up with friend of the show, Chris Nguyen, who’s rebuilt his business twice since his last appearance. They talk about why designers can’t count on job secu

Ambiguity Effect: The Hidden Reason Your Roadmap Keeps Playing It Safe

Your team isn’t just avoiding risk, they’re avoiding the unknown. In this episode of the Cognition Catalog, I break down the ambiguity effect: the cognitive bias that mak

Build a Career That Outlasts Your Next Layoff with Frank Bach

Your nine-to-five pays the bills, but it doesn’t define your career, and if you think it does, that might be the thing holding you back. This week, I sit down with a lead

Illusory Correlation: The Bias That Turns Coincidence Into Conviction

Your brain is wired to find patterns. That's mostly a good thing... until it's not. This episode breaks down illusory correlation: why your team sees connections that are

You're Not the Center of the Corporate Universe with Andy Vitale

There's a gap between how designers see themselves and how everyone else sees them, and that gap has consequences. In this episode, a seasoned design executive shares wha

Social Desirability: Everyone Knew. Nobody Said It.

We've all been in that meeting: the one where everyone nods along and nobody says the thing they're actually thinking. That's not a personality flaw. It's a bias. This ep

Yes, And... Now What? Improv Lessons for Navigating the Actual Job with Nikki Anderson

Your tools are solid. Your process is tight. But when a stakeholder pushes back, a workshop goes sideways, or a PM challenges your work, none of that matters. What matter

The Frequency Illusion: You Just Noticed It, but it Was Always There

Your brain doesn't show you everything around you — it shows you what it's been told to look for. In this episode of the Cognition Catalog, we break down the frequency il

The Execution Trap Nobody Warns You About with Cat Lo

Cat Lo spent 20 years learning that execution excellence can actually hold you back. After burning out at Amazon doing beautiful work that nobody noticed, she distilled h

Survivorship Bias: Success Theater and the Data You Never See

We've built our careers on case studies, portfolios, and success stories, but what if we're only ever seeing a fraction of the full picture? This week, we dig into surviv

Democratize Without Destroying: The Case for Research Charters with Ned Dwyer

AI is making it easier than ever to run research, but faster doesn't always mean better. In this episode, we dig into what it really means to democratize research respons

Expectation Bias: Your Prediction Is Showing

Have you ever walked out of a usability session completely confident in your findings, only to ship something that quietly missed the mark? What if the signal was there

Party of One: Building a Practice When You're Alone in the Room with Julian Della Mattia

What does it actually take to be the first, or only, designer or researcher on a team? Spoiler: it’s not just about doing great work. This week, we get into the unglamoro

Anecdotal Fallacy: A Data Point of One Is Not Evidence

Why does one vivid customer story outweigh months of research? This week on the Cognition Catalog, we break down the anecdotal fallacy — our tendency to let a single expe

From Iran to China to the US: A real-life VUCA Story with Mahnaz Hajesmaeili

Mahnaz has lived with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity in ways most product teams never will. In this episode, we talk about what happens when VUCA isn’

The Testing Effect: Why nodding along doesn’t mean alignment

You can have clear meetings, clean decks, and unanimous nods and still walk away misaligned. In this episode of the Cognition Catalog, we break down the testing effect an