S1E5 VIDEO: A Lively Debate About Things We (Mostly) Agree On with Jared Spool

Oh. My. God. You guys. Jared Spool is on Corporate Underpants. 🎉

In this episode, I sit down with the Jared Spool to talk about UX, product, and—of course—the corporate messes that make our jobs way harder than they need to be. We kick things off by diving into the early, wild days of UX (back when “user experience” wasn’t even a thing), and Jared shares hilarious and infuriating stories about fighting for better design before anyone knew why it mattered.

Then we get into the real stuff:
⚡ Why proving UX’s value is still an uphill battle (and what to do about it)
⚡ How business metrics—not just usability—can make UX indispensable
⚡ How to stop waiting for a seat at the table and make leadership pay attention

Jared also casually drops the fact that he accidentally invented voicemail (oops), helped define the way we use keyboards, and somehow made usability testing sound fun. If you’ve ever had to fight for UX, justify your work, or convince execs to stop launching terrible products, you need this episode.

04:24 Jared's Early Badassery: The 70's and 80's

07:15 The Era of "Computer Operators"

09:49 The First Word Processors in the Era Before UX

13:27 Jared Accidentally Invents Voicemail

17:06 Getting People To Think About "Users"

18:23 Early 2000's: The First Research Into "What Makes A Good Website?"

21:05 The Trick: What Does Great UX Mean To Your Team or Org?

23:40 De mocratization vs. Delegation

25:14 The First Usability Lab

30:39 Jared's Work Today: How To Get A Seat At The Table

31:26 We Know How To Design Things. So Why Are Things Still Poorly Designed?

32:31 The 2010s' Boom: 6,221 Days Without Becoming a Bank

36:12 Our Snobbishness About "The Bottom LIne"

38:28 The Face Weasel

38:58 How To Become Hyper-Valuable To Mount Olumpus

41:59 Tamara And Jared Argue Over Job Titles

43:12 How To Become Powerful In An Organization

46:49 Leaders Of Awesomeness Helps You Become Undeniably Valuable

48:30 Pro-tip: Metrics Aren't "Numbers." They're "Measuring Change."

49:22 Shifting from Tactical Research to Strategic Research