Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX
High Monkey
Discussing Stupid returns to the airwaves to transform digital facepalms into teachable moments—all in the time it takes to enjoy your coffee break! Sponsored by High Monkey, this podcast dives into ‘stupid’ practices across websites and Microsoft collaboration tools, among other digital realms. Our "byte-sized" bi-weekly episodes are packed with expert insights and a healthy dose of humor. Discussions focus on five key areas: Business Process & Collaboration, UX/IA, Inclusive Design, Content & Search, and Performance & SEO. Join us and let’s start making the digital world a bit less stupid, one episode at a time.
Visit our website at https://www.discussingstupid.com
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Top 10 Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX Episodes
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If you want people to read your content, make your content readable!!
Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX
11/12/24 • 17 min
In Episode 3 of Discussing Stupid Season 2, host Virgil Carroll, along with Cole Schlotthauer from High Monkey, dives into the topic of content readability. They focus on how overly complex or technical language can turn users away and make it harder for people to understand.
The team discusses common readability mistakes like using too much jargon, confusing sentence structure, and not keeping the audience in mind. Virgil shares examples from government and education where content wasn’t simple enough. They explain why it’s important to know your audience and keep language clear, especially for government websites that need to be at an 8th-grade reading level.
The episode also includes a demo using Readable.com, where Virgil and Cole show how to take a sentence and make sure it is clear and easy to read. This example shows why keeping content simple helps people understand and stay engaged.
By the end of this episode, you’ll have tips to make your content easy to read and understand, reaching a wider audience.
Join us every two weeks for new episodes, and don’t forget to like, review, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. For more resources and updates, visit www.discussingstupid.com.
LINKS
Tools Mentioned:
Readable.com: https://www.readable.com/
Readable.com Demo Clip:
Watch a clip of Virgil and Cole using Readable.com to enhance content clarity:
https://www.discussingstupid.com/p/episode-3-readablecom-demo/
Subscribe for email updates on our website:
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Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Soundcloud:
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https://soundcloud.com/discussing-stupid
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Episode 1: The hype and sensibility of Artificial Intelligence in Search | Ben Tilley, Funnelback
Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX
04/11/18 • 34 min
On our very first podcast (episode 1 YEAH!!!), Virgil is joined by Ben Tilley from Funnelback, an Australian-based search company, to break through all the hype around the use of artificial intelligence in search and talk about real world implementations and pitfalls.
Listening to this discussion, you will discover that implementing AI in search is not all that easy (shocker!!) and still requires you to follow good content and search practices. Where AI has many practical applications in search, effort is still needed and fundamentals need to be followed. In the end, AI cannot fix your search if your content still sucks.
There is reason to hope, good AI can be very helpful. According to Ben, "Being able to use some form of natural language processing to extract information out of your written text and turn that back into structure is a great way you can start to improve search."
Throughout this episode, Virgil and Ben will share the challenges you will face while giving you thoughts on how you can get your content and search ready to be able to use AI to its full potential.
Resources discussed:
- https://www.wolframalpha.com/ - one of the first search engines to use AI
- https://www.westpac.com.au/ - example organization using AI in their search
Helpful articles from Funnelback:
The Semantics of Search | Brett Matson, Funnelback
Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX
05/15/19 • 46 min
In this episode of the Discussing Stupid podcast your host Virgil Carroll has a conversation with Brett Matson, the Managing Director of Funnelback Search Technology, about search, semantic search, knowledge graphs, artificial intelligence in search, and the related leverages and pitfalls.
Brett shares that there are several big things coming in the area of search, after reaching a plateau and stagnation for a few years. Some of these are paradigmatic (understanding the search has multiple purposes, not just page rankings,) and some include changing the approach (i.e. modifying queries,) changing presentation of results (modules,) knowledge graphs, semantic search (detecting the intent of the query,) and many more.
Brett explores how some of these new technologies are intrinsically more attractive to people. For example, knowledge graphs are (or can be) visual and show relations between entities in them. Thus, they are much more intuitive in contrast to being faced with a wall of data to choose from. The point is, of course, making content a lot more intelligent and hence more useful, by treating it as a product and perfecting its delivery.
In Brett’s opinion, during the next decade we will see a real proliferation of smart tools that will help users and companies perform a significantly better search. Virgil and Brett also discuss how it is very important to avoid making too many connections when using a new, powerful technology that can do that. This can bog down the whole organization, its data servers, employees, and finally, users.
Virgil’s conversation with Brett is very rich and diverse, so make sure to listen to the whole episode and pay close attention to what he had to share.
Links:
Episode mentioned:
Future-proofing your experience delivery strategy with Intelligent Content by Kate Skinner.
Siraj Raval's YouTube channel is full of short, fun videos that teach all different aspects of machine learning and AI.
Coursera's Machine Learning course, one of the original online machine learning courses, delivered by leading AI researcher Andrew Ng.
A great article by Sebastien Dery discussing the challenges of knowledge graphs.
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Why search systems fail without semantics
Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX
12/03/24 • 13 min
In Episode 4 of Discussing Stupid, host Virgil Carroll and co-host Cole Schlotthauer from High Monkey dive into the complex world of search systems and the importance of semantics in delivering relevant results. This episode explores the frustrations users often face when search systems fail to recognize variations in spelling, synonyms, and context, which can drastically impact user experience.
Virgil and Cole discuss common issues with search systems, such as treating every search term the same and ignoring common phrases and alternative names. They share real-world examples, like a bank where users searched for one name in numerous ways, illustrating the need for search systems to recognize and account for these variations. The team also emphasizes that improving search functionality requires more than just turning it on—it involves continuous work, testing, and understanding of user behavior.
To wrap up, Virgil highlights best practices, including using “push search” technology to guide users to the right results and leveraging search analytics to understand how people are searching. By the end of the episode, listeners will gain practical insights into making search more intuitive and user-friendly.
Join us every two weeks for new episodes, and don’t forget to like, review, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. For more resources and updates, visit www.discussingstupid.com.
(0:00) - Intro
(1:26) - A lot of search systems suck
(1:57) - Search needs semantics
(3:04) - Search with VS without semantics
(4:48) - When AB&T meets AB and T
(6:14) - The English language is funny
(8:00) - The power of curated results
(10:50) - Virgil's biggest piece of advice
(12:41) - Outro
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Font mistakes that are costing you big time
Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX
12/17/24 • 15 min
In Episode 5 of Discussing Stupid, host Virgil Carroll and co-hosts Chad Heinle and Cole Schlotthauer from High Monkey explore the often-overlooked mistakes organizations make with typography and the significant impact it can have on user experience and performance. From excessive font usage to unreadable design choices, this episode dives into the dos and don’ts of effective typography.
The team discusses:
- Why using too many fonts on a website creates confusion and slows down performance.
- The importance of keeping fonts readable and how font size and weight affect usability.
- Real-world examples of font mistakes, including when and where decorative fonts can work—and when they don’t.
- How poor typography choices can kill website performance, particularly through improper font loading.
To wrap up, they discuss actionable best practices, including limiting font selections, optimizing font files for performance, and always keeping your audience in mind when choosing typography.
By the end of this episode, you’ll gain practical insights to help your website achieve both aesthetic appeal and functional clarity—without sacrificing performance.
This marks the final episode of 2024, and we want to thank all of you for joining us this year! We’ll be taking a short break for the holidays but will return in 2025 with more episodes, more “stupid,” and more expert advice to help you avoid common digital mistakes.
Until then, like, review, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, and visit www.discussingstupid.com for updates and resources.
Happy holidays, and see you in the new year!
(0:00) - Intro & holiday spirit
(1:44) - Welcome back, Chad
(2:20) - Too many fonts = chaos
(4:05) - Learning from print design
(5:25) - Typography as Art vs. Function
(6:23) - The hidden cost of fancy fonts
(8:04) - Should some fonts be banned?
(10:11) - Know your audience and the context
(12:06) - With fonts, less is more
(14:28) - Outro & happy holidays!
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Creating inclusive digital experiences – getting your content contributors onboard | Doug Burgett, University of Illinois
Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX
05/23/18 • 38 min
In today’s digital world, creating an inclusive visitor experience is often discussed but never really implemented. One of the biggest challenges facing successful implementation is taming the behaviors of a large base of content contributors. In this episode, Virgil is joined by Doug Burgett of the University of Illinois, to discuss his first-hand experience with this topic. Doug is the Creative Director for Marketing Communications for Enrollment Management (translation: he markets for admissions). In this role, Doug has primary responsibility for the most important areas of the University of Illinois website and must ‘wrangle’ a diverse population of contributors who possess a variety of skill levels.
During the podcast, Virgil and Doug discuss the challenges we all face keeping our digital properties accessible. Add to the mix that we have to train our contributors to use the tools at our disposal in an educated way. According to Burgett, “When content editors use WYSIWYG editors they don’t realize that as the enter content into the editor, code is actually being created in the back end. Knowing this helps content editors to Realize the power they have at their fingertips.” Once consistency among content editors has been achieved, Virgil and Doug discuss bad practices to avoid, look at some of the monitoring tools and techniques you can employ, and explore how to provide your customers with all-inclusive digital experiences.
Resources discussed:
- https://developers.google.com/amp/ - Google’s mobile first development methodology
- https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/ - Understanding the use of ARIA tags
- https://fae.disability.illinois.edu/anonymous/?Anonymous%20Report=/ - University of Illinois’s Functional Accessibility Evaluator
- https://webaim.org/ - Online accessibility compliance auditor
- https://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrastanalyser - Accessibility color contrast tester
Subscribe for email updates on our website:
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Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Soundcloud:
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Your poorly written alt text doesn't go unnoticed...
Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX
10/15/24 • 16 min
Welcome to the first episode of Discussing Stupid Season 2, where your host Virgil Carroll, along with Chad and Cole from High Monkey, dive into the importance of inclusive design. In this episode, they focus on the often overlooked but crucial aspect of alt text for images.
Virgil, Chad, and Cole discuss the significance of alt text in creating an inclusive digital experience. They emphasize that alt text is not merely about ticking boxes for WCAG or ADA compliance. Instead, it plays a crucial role in enhancing accessibility and inclusivity for individuals who rely on screen readers. The discussion covers the various types of images—decorative, practical, and informative—and offers insights on how to accurately describe them to improve the digital experience for everyone.
The episode also explores the limitations of relying solely on AI to generate alt text, underscoring the importance of human-crafted, meaningful descriptions that can profoundly impact users who depend on assistive technologies. Furthermore, the team shares practical tips on integrating inclusive design practices into your content creation process, ensuring that your digital content is accessible and understandable to all users.
Throughout the episode, you'll gain valuable knowledge on how to implement best practices for alt text and learn why it's essential to consider inclusivity at every stage of your content lifecycle. By the end of the discussion, you'll be equipped with the tools and insights needed to make your digital content more accessible and inclusive.
Join us every two weeks for new episodes, and don’t forget to like, review, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. For more resources and updates, visit www.discussingstupid.com.
LINKS
Tools mentioned:
Wave: https://wave.webaim.org/
Lighthouse: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/overview/
Alt text examples from the episode: https://www.discussingstupid.com/p/episode-1-alt-text-examples/
Resources from the Web Accessibility Initiative:
Decorative images: https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/decorative/
Informative images: https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/informative/
Tips and Trick
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Big images, slow loading
Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX
10/29/24 • 16 min
In Episode 2 of Discussing Stupid Season 2, host Virgil Carroll, along with Chad and Cole from High Monkey, dives into the topic of page performance and SEO, specifically focusing on how oversized images can slow down your website.
They discuss common mistakes people make with large images—like shrinking images in HTML without optimizing file size—and how these errors can negatively impact both the user experience and SEO rankings. The team shares insights into how to avoid these pitfalls and explores how tools like RIOT (Radical Image Optimization Tool) can help reduce file sizes without sacrificing image quality.
You'll also hear about the often overlooked balance between mobile and desktop optimization. The team highlights why simply resizing images for mobile isn’t enough and explains how poor image handling can lead to sluggish performance on mobile devices, frustrating users and hurting your site's overall effectiveness.
By the end of this episode, you'll walk away with actionable tips on optimizing images for both performance and SEO, ultimately improving your site’s speed and user experience.
Join us every two weeks for new episodes, and don’t forget to like, review, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. For more resources and updates, visit www.discussingstupid.com.
LINKS
Tools mentioned:
Riot (Radical Image Optimization Tool): https://riot-optimizer.com/
Riot demo clip from this episode: https://www.discussingstupid.com/p/episode-2-image-optimization-demo
Subscribe for email updates on our website:
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Consistent UX across multiple channels | Kanwal Khipple, 2toLEAD
Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX
03/13/19 • 44 min
In this episode of the Discussing Stupid podcast, your host Virgil Carroll has a conversation with Kanwal Khipple about successful and consistent user experience (UX) across multiple channels. The question is how to design consistent user experience for people across different interfaces developed by different companies to provide different experiences. Kanwal is the CEO at 2toLEAD, and great UX innovation is his passion. Virgil and Kanwal dive deep into the past and recent trends of tools, the challenges that user experience design faces across tools, and offer advice on the best approaches to cultivate successful cross-app user experience.
One of the major challenges of UX is adopting a tool (or tools) that can sometimes be too complex and can feel burdensome. For UX design to be successful, it is important to understand the users themselves and how they utilize your services or business’s tools. For that reason, it’s important to note and map how consumers find your tools and how they use the tools. Another important aspect of UX design is to not overwhelm users. For example, one common error is overloading them with notifications that they cannot manage or turn off. Building a road map where the whole process will help the users and the company as well.
There are 3 facets of UX – navigation, search, and the actual content. The best approach is to focus on one of these, excel at it, gather feedback, and continuously improve.
Buzzword for this episode: seamlessness
Links:
Connect with Kanwal on LinkedIn
Follow Kanwal on Twitter (@kkhipple)
Follow Discussing Stupid on Twitter (@DiscussStupid) and Facebook
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Reducing friction in your digital content creation | Martin Michalik, Kentico
Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX
10/24/18 • 43 min
In this episode of the Discussing Stupid podcast, host Virgil Carroll sits down with Martin MacCulloch from Kentico Cloud. Martin is a product manager at Kentico Cloud. Kentico Cloud is a cloud-based environment for content management and delivery. Martin joins Virgil to discuss content friction, common workflow problems, and how Kentico Cloud is harnessing technology to improve content efficiency and cohesiveness. After their interview, Virgil shares his frustration with a new buzzword in the Stupid Buzz section of the show.
As the conversation unfolds, Martin defines content friction as everything that causes inefficiency or damage throughout the content lifecycle. Martin breaks down some of the friction his teams experienced around new product launches. Namely, how they found it difficult to decide who would write the content, how to craft a cohesive message, and how to collaborate efficiently as a team. Martin and Virgil talk about how to build beneficial workflow systems and avoid perpetuating the problems you’re trying to fix.
Next, Martin shared numerous technological and workflow issues that he has witnessed throughout his career. Some of these issues include inefficient file storage where hundreds of emails are exchanged, failing to work on the most recent version of a file in collaborative projects, bottlenecked team structures where a plethora of decisions have to be made by a single person, and more. Virgil then asks Martin about how Kentico Cloud is working to streamline the collaborative content-creation process, help brands craft a cohesive message, and improve the journey from ideation to execution.
After the conversation winds down, Virgil dives into Stupid Buzz, where he talks about a buzzword that gets on his nerves. This week’s buzzword is “omnichannel.” Virgil shares his concerns about the way that people use the term incorrectly and points back to its legitimate meaning, which implies understanding your content on a microscopic and big-picture level as it relates to the various platforms it’s being published on. In short, omnichannel content is far more complex and specific than many people suggest through their inaccurate use of the term.
LINKS
Learn more about Kentico Cloud
https://www.kentico.com/
Download a free handbook of templates and best-practices from the Content Strategy Alliance
https://contentstrategyalliance.com/resources/csa-handbook/
Subscribe for email updates on our website:
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FAQ
How many episodes does Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX have?
Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX currently has 19 episodes available.
What topics does Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX cover?
The podcast is about Ux Design, Graphic Design, Marketing, Content Strategy, Podcasts, Technology, Digital Strategy, Digital Marketing, Business and Search.
What is the most popular episode on Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX?
The episode title 'The Semantics of Search | Brett Matson, Funnelback' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX?
The average episode length on Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX is 27 minutes.
How often are episodes of Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX released?
Episodes of Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX are typically released every 14 days.
When was the first episode of Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX?
The first episode of Discussing Stupid: A byte-sized podcast on stupid UX was released on Apr 11, 2018.
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