My favourite UX, design and frontend development podcasts

As I can’t be arsed to read blogs or Twitter that often, podcasts are kinda vital for me. They let me keep up with latest news and trends in the web world, and keep me occupied on my 40 minute bicycle commute to work.

The podcasts

The mix of FED, UX and design podcasts that I listen to each day.

Shoptalk Show

I’m not sure how Dave and Chris manage to churn this show out, but every week a new 1 hour show emerges, and it’s always something to look forward to. Sometimes the shows are centered on special guests and a particular topic, while others are rapid fire shows, where they answer questions on FED tech, process and business sent in by listeners.

It’s always a pleasure to listen to and always informative, and it has been wonderful to see Dave and Chris grow and learn about issues of diversity and intersectionality. When you hear a show that used to feature macho machine-gun noises and dude jokes now ask for show donations to be made to Black Girls Code, you know progress in this industry is possible.

Toolsday

You’re greeted at the start of each episode by Una singing about FED. This is, surprisingly, a good thing. Una and Chris spend each 20 minute show covering topics surrounding the tech and tooling side of FED. So one episode might be ES2015, while another might discuss standards and linters. Definitely a good one for getting up to speed on the (sometimes frustratingly) broad topics that make up FED.

TTL

I’ve just started listening to this, and I’m already hooked. Between 40 minutes and an hour long, this show has Rebecca talking to a guest about their area of expertise and the work that they do. This results in excellent insider secrets and tips being unearthed in every episode.

Style Guide Podcast

The Style Guide Podcast is pretty heavy, dealing with the process and business angles of building and maintaining company-wide style guides. But set aside an hour to listen to the show and you’ll get some valuable insights into maintaining style guides and pattern libraries at scale.

Responsive Design Podcast

Coming out every 2 - 4 weeks, Justin’s show is an audio extensions of the RWD newsletter, and is a great way of keeping up with trends in the web industry. Each show is highly variable in length and content, but it’s always informative.

99 Percent Invisible

Not actually tech orientated, but this is podcast delivers delicious 20 minute chunks about the design that we miss in our everyday lives.

Responsive Web Design

Karen and Ethan spend around 20 minutes each episode talking to the people who make responsive web designs happen. While some of us might take RWD to be a given now, it is still being rolled our in large organisations and in big corporate redesigns. This show gives some great insights into the people and tech processes behind this.

What is wrong with UX?

These ladies are fucking lovely. They drink, argue and snipe about UX issues, and their drunken conversations meander all over the tech development landscape. A genuine pleasure to listen to. (I want to be like them when I grow up).

Bicycle headphone addendum

While I’d never try to simultaneously ride a bicycle in London and listen to anything on headphones, because you need 100% of your wits about you in a city filled the Daily Mail-reading, hate-filled, HGV drivers literally trying to kill you, I have no problem doing so in Berlin.

Berlin is, in every aspect (bar queueing - where it is 100% German), utterly chill. So while I wait at lights, avoid pedestrians in the cycle lanes, and get shaken to death on Berlin’s randomly cobbled streets, I probably have one of these shows playing in a solitary ear.

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