Beyond UX Design · 2026-05-15 · 55 min
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 matters is how you respond. Nikki Anderson joins me to talk about improv, structured play, and how to stay sharp when the messy stuff hits. What if the most important skill in your UX career has nothing to do with design? Nikki Anderson is a UX research consultant, founder of Drop-In Research, and one of those rare people who can draw a straight line between improv comedy and stakeholder management, and actually make it land. She started doing improv around the same time she got into UX research, originally to overcome a lifelong fear of speaking on the spot. What she found was that the principles she was learning on stage translated almost perfectly into the conference room. In this conversation, we get into the specific places where UX professionals tend to flail, and it's not where most people think. It's not the research plan or the prototype. It's the high-stakes meeting where everything's riding on one presentation. It's the design critique that spirals into defensiveness.
Ambiguity Effect: The Hidden Reason Your Roadmap Keeps Playing It Safe54 / 100
Build a Career That Outlasts Your Next Layoff with Frank Bach
Illusory Correlation: The Bias That Turns Coincidence Into Conviction
You're Not the Center of the Corporate Universe with Andy Vitale
Social Desirability: Everyone Knew. Nobody Said It.