Reflections from The Optimal Path: Key insights and highlights

As 2024 draws to a close, we’ve revisited The Optimal Path podcast archives to spotlight the main topics shaping the future of user research, design, and product development.

The themes that emerged from our conversations with industry leaders—customer-centricity, scaling research, and ethics and inclusive design—are more relevant than ever as we head into 2025.

Whether you’re looking for practical strategies or fresh perspectives to elevate your work, these episode takeaways offer inspiration for every stage of your UX journey. Plus, don’t miss our curated list of guest-recommended books—perfect for your holiday reading or gifting.

Benjamin Humphrey, CEO and Co-founder at Dovetail, explores the rise of customer-centricity and the evolving role of user research in product development:

“Execution is no longer how you differentiate these days—that's getting easier and easier thanks to technology. It’s more about building the right thing for the right person. If you can be more customer-focused than your competitors, you’ll win.”

Benjamin underscores how research insights can serve as valuable intellectual property for companies, turning customer understanding into a sustainable competitive advantage.

What does it really take to become a customer-centric company?

According to Jehad Affoneh, Chief Design Officer at Toast, being a customer-centric, experience-led company is less about the function and more about the outcomes we want to deliver to our customers.

"The experience may be designed by a design or customer experience team but it’s influenced by many different departments. If you're part of the design or research team, one of the most powerful things you can do is define customer experience as something everybody owns."

Jehad describes Toast’s guiding principle for decision-making, rooted in prioritizing outcomes for customers, the business, teams, and individuals—in that order. “It’s a forcing function to make the right decisions. The best outcomes for customers and the business are often the best outcomes for the team too.”

Roy Opata Olende, former Head of UX Research at Zapier, explores the different modalities of learning that take place inside organizations and how to embed curiosity into company culture.

To align research with every level of the company, Roy introduces the concept of UX research altitudes:

According to Roy, “Research adds the most value at higher altitudes where directional and strategic decisions are made. But to get there, you often need to prove its value through smaller wins.” His “menu of learning” provides a framework for scaling research efforts and impact across teams.

Looking at the research transformation journey at Zendesk, Head of UX Research Reggie Murphy reflects on scaling research through democratization:

"Not only are we interested in building and shipping great features to help our customers win, but we're also interested in understanding their problems and how we can best solve them—and that's done through research. Democratizing our work is in service to that. We're going to develop the best tools we can to help others in the company run research."

"Conducting research isn't the only way a UX researcher can have value at a company. Our cross-functional partners want strategic guidance about which way they should move. That's how you become a true partner and move beyond the research requests framework.

By fostering a culture of learning and empowering teams to leverage research tools, Zendesk has built a scalable and impactful research practice, elevating it from a supporting function to a strategic partner within the business.

Product teams operate at the intersection of creativity and problem-solving. However, every decision is inherently influenced by the experiences, beliefs, and biases of the people building the product. By identifying assumptions early in the design and research process, teams can avoid gaps in understanding users that might otherwise limit their ability to build a successful solution.

Whether assumptions are based on cultural norms, technological use or experience, or even physical abilities and lived experiences, failing to surface them can result in products that miss the mark.

Melanie Buset, former Senior UX Researcher at Spotify, shares a method for challenging assumptions within teams and building more ethical research practices:

“An assumption slam gets all your assumptions out in the open. Mapping them by risk and uncertainty helps identify where more research is needed before moving forward. This collaborative practice enables cross-functional teams to navigate complex problems with clarity and confidence.”

Samuel Proulx, Accessibility Evangelist at Fable, advocates for integrating inclusive practices throughout design and technology:

“Inclusive design means designing collaboratively with people of different ages, experience levels, and cultures to come up with solutions that work for them. It’s about collaborating and ideating with diverse voices—not just in your research process but within your design team and company culture.”

Looking ahead, Samuel emphasizes the importance of prioritizing inclusive design and accessibility in emerging technologies like AI and VR: “We need to consider accessibility now to ensure we’re prepared as these technologies become mainstream.”

On The Optimal Path, host Ash Oliver invites each guest to share their top industry-related book recommendations. Below is a curated list of must-read titles from every episode to date—designed to inspire your professional growth.

“What is the industry-related book that you've either given or recommended the most?”

Books that explore how humans think, behave, and make decisions.

Books focused on methodologies, mindsets, and the impact of research on creating human-centered products.

Books that explore leading and organizing teams for companies to thrive.

Books that uncover creative techniques to solve complex challenges and build innovative solutions.

Books on establishing guiding principles and navigating work and life.

Books offering fresh ideas and insights across technology, design, and communication.