How User Research Shapes Better UX Design with Jonathan Kokké

Inside How User Research Shapes Better UX Design

1. —

   Meet Jonathan Kokké

   The episode opens with Jonathan’s path into the field: trained as a graphic designer at art school, he moved into digital, then UX, ran his own consultancy up to the pandemic, led design at FTSE 100 firm RS Group, and is now head of user experience at De Montfort University. He sets up a conversation about evidence-led design, using AI without handing over the thinking, and why “usable” beats “viable.”

2. 01

   How UX Research Stopped Being a Hard Sell

   • Why evidence-led decision making is now closer to table stakes than a luxury for big firms.
   • His remit at De Montfort: bring user-centered design to the front of decisions for staff and students.
   • The falling barrier to entry, from renting usability labs to Figma prototypes and remote testing.
3. 02

   Design for the Buyer, Not the Product

   • The baby-product site that looked childish when parents and grandparents were the actual buyers.
   • Using the client’s own data to argue for a more sophisticated design, and the upswing that followed.
   • The starting point of user-centered design: understand who you’re really designing for.
4. 03

   Get a Mark on the Canvas

   • His grandfather’s lesson: once you make a mark, you have something to react to and improve.
   • Turning paper sketches into wireframes, and concepts into testable prototypes with tools like Figma, Lovable, and Base44.
   • The trap he keeps seeing: “good enough” ships, and the continuous-improvement cycle stops there.
5. 04

   From MVP to MUP: Minimum Usable Product

   • Why he dislikes “minimum viable” and prefers “minimum usable” instead.
   • Two sides of usable: can the person complete the task, and how do they feel while doing it.
   • The De Montfort registration example, where a frustrating flow costs you students before they even enroll.
6. 05

   Designing for Delight, Appropriately

   • Why the best experience sometimes melts into the background rather than grinning ear to ear.
   • The NHS rostering app: a calm, compassionate layout over blaring alarms, with everything within arm’s reach.
   • Meeting users where they are, with Kano theory separating basic, performance, and excitement needs.
7. 06

   The Rise of the “Everything, Always” Experience

   • How ChatGPT-style tools set the expectation of one place instead of fifty apps and sources.
   • Why phones-first, voice, and avatar interactions keep raising the bar for what feels good.
   • His worry: hand the thinking to AI and you lose the problem-solving and creativity underneath.
8. 07

   Where AI Helps and Where It Shouldn’t Lead

   • Clear wins: transcription, sentiment analysis, and keyword themes from user interviews.
   • The hammer-and-nail caution, using AI responsibly, thoughtfully, and ethically.
   • Validate fast with AI-built prototypes, then rebuild for something sustainable long term.
9. 08

   Test, Measure, Adjust

   • Why the hardest part isn’t the tools but the discipline of continuous discovery and iteration.
   • Moving a button and watching the response rate, in prototypes or in live code.
   • Conversion-rate experiments that release a new experience to a slice of users to see real results.
10. 09

    Read Wide, Then Ship Without Fear

    • His advice to newer researchers: read deep and wide, then apply it without fear of mistakes.
    • Influences he points to: Rory Sutherland, Jared Spool, Jeff Gothelf, Joshua Seiden, and Daniel Pidcock’s atomic research.
    • Why the work won’t speak for itself, so learning to communicate and win buy-in matters as much as craft.
11. 10

    Treat Your Team as a Product

    • His magic-wand wish: an engaged student research panel feeding the design process.
    • How he now runs his team the way he ran design work, with feedback and iteration.
    • The closing lesson: show something early, because waiting for perfect only makes the feedback hurt more.