Welcome to this Patreon exclusive preview. If you’re new to A76’s Patreon or you’re listening to a preview for the first time, these exclusive episodes are where I talk about my production of the podcast, break down some of the discussions coming out of my free interviews. I bring new ideas here—things I’m kicking around—and I share additional content from those interviews.

I used to call these Icebreaks because, well if you haven’t noticed we have an iceberg thing going on here at A76. And the podcast was named after a massive state-sized iceberg, an apt metaphor for UX design since the majority of our design work lies beneath the surface, unseen by the user but oh so critical.

I’m changing it up for this Patreon exclusive; I’m both finalizing this season of scale and gearing up for an exciting season ahead. And if you’re a Patreon subscriber you’ll hear my season 4 announcement later in this episode plus a hilarious and insightful ThinkFast game Olivia Moore T. and I did.

A special thank you to my Patreon subscribers. I couldn’t do this podcast without you and you’re helping me get this pod to carbon neutral. If you want to help support the pod, head over to the Patreon link in the show notes. A warm thank you even if you're just thinking about it.

Thank you to all the designers, creators, and adjacent makers I interviewed this season. You're all amazing.

Keep designing. Keep growing. And keep making a positive impact.

~ Noel

A76 was created by Noel Childs

Season 3 on Scale is produced by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change was produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs

Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton
Our outro was read by Kari Childs

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Or become a member of the A76 Patreon at patreon.com/A76designpod
Have a question or comment, email noel@A76pod.com
and connect with us on Bluesky

In this deeply personal and expansive conversation, I sit down with Olivia Moore T., a talented designer whose roots in Detroit, radio and tech have fueled a career in experience design. We explore her origin story, the tension between creativity and capitalism, how nostalgia is reshaping Gen Z’s approach and the increasingly blurry line between tools and culture. Our conversation veers from thoughtful to playful, from systemic critique to personal honesty—making this episode both a mirror for designers and a signal flare for where we might be headed next.

I hope you enjoy.

~ Noel

A76 was created by Noel Childs

Season 3 on Scale is produced by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change was produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs

Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton
Our outro was read by Kari Childs

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Or become a member of the A76 Patreon at patreon.com/A76designpod
Have a question or comment, email noel@A76pod.com
and connect with us on Bluesky

Who really benefits from our current AI assistants? In this final episode of the NoelAI mini-series on A76, I go on a deeply personal and sharply critical journey of the current state of AI assistants. And ask why—after years of hype—we still don’t have an assistant that truly serves us.

Blending design thinking, cultural critique, and speculative hardware, I posit a radically user-centric vision for an AI assistant built around human needs and not tech company agendas. What would it look like to ditch your iPhone and have something smaller, smarter, and more human by your side? And more importantly, what’s standing in the way?

This is a call to reimagine. To push past uncanny interfaces and shallow convenience into something more meaningful and ultimately demand more from our digital tech.

Keep designing. Keep growing. And keep making a positive impact.

~ Noel

A76 was created by Noel Childs

Season 3 on Scale is produced by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change was produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs

Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton
Our outro was read by Kari Childs

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Or become a member of the A76 Patreon at patreon.com/A76designpod
Have a question or comment, email noel@A76pod.com
and connect with us on Bluesky

Welcome back from our mid-season break! In today’s pod, I chat with Jennifer Andrews, who leads the Experience Design team in Digitas’ New York office. We chat about web1, her personal origin story, Japanese culture, her work in the Accessibility Center of Excellence and AI's impact on design.

And afterwards I highlight recent episodes and share how you can support A76.

Recent free episodes:
030: The path to a carbon neutral A76 with Matt Saip
029: Personalized micro-interaction fails with Noel Childs

Recent Patreon episodes:
NoelAI Series One / Two / Three

Keep designing. Keep growing. And keep making a positive impact.

~Noel

A76 was created by Noel Childs

Season 3 on Scale is produced by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change was produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs

Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton
Our outro was read by Kari Childs

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Or become a member of the A76 Patreon at patreon.com/A76designpod
Have a question or comment, email noel@A76pod.com
and connect with us on Bluesky

My goal is to make A76 sustainable in as many facets as I can. And for my 30th episode, I'm sharing my introductory conversation with Matt Saip, Head of Technology at Digitas Chicago, where we discuss the tech side of achieving this goal. We have an open discussion about calculating the exact carbon footprint of my production, the potential for green web hosting and sustainable tech.

Shedding light on an area we so often taken for granted, the energy it takes to power our digital lives is both instructional and inspiring. And this marks the beginning of my shared journey toward achieving carbon neutrality for A76. Thanks for joining me on this path.

~ Noel

A76 was created by Noel Childs

Season 3 on Scale is produced by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change was produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs

Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton
Our outro was read by Kari Childs

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Or become a member of the A76 Patreon at patreon.com/A76designpod
Have a question or comment, email noel@A76pod.com
and connect with us on Bluesky

Welcome to a new episode of A76. Today, we're taking a detour from our usual in-depth interviews with designers and makers to explore something a little different—micro-interactions and moments of personalization that could be vastly improved.

If you're curious about what's happening over on our Patreon or if you simply want to support the A76 Design Pod, head over to patreon.com/A76designpod. By joining, you'll gain access to exclusive episodes and my original series on hyper-personalized AI assistants, dubbed NoelAI. In that series, I dive into topics of working for tech, personal risk concerns, the uncanny ID, conversational UI, behavioral habit mapping and debating the pros and cons of an AI assistant.

Looking ahead this season, Matt Saip and I will discuss our journey in making the A76 Design Pod a carbon-neutral production including our insights, research, and plans for achieving this goal.

Also, exciting news—I'll be announcing an in-person A76 event in Chicago, featuring an open debate panel, salon-style, towards the end of the season. Stay tuned for topics and details.

A big thank you to all our Patreon members—your support makes this all possible.

Now, let's dive into the world of personalization—specifically, the micro-interactions and moments that absolutely drive me bonkers. I can't turn off my designer brain when engaging with these frequently failing experiences, even in my daily life. And while it may sound harsh, my aim is to help us learn as designers by examining these small, fixable interactions. And all the examples we'll discuss are drawn from well-resourced brands, that should do better. While I'm not personally connected to these brands or their teams, these are interactions I've personally experienced. And while I have hundreds I could pull from, I've pulled five for example.

I'm fully aware of the challenges involved in launching amazing digital experiences, from platform and database limitations to the inevitable concessions designers must make. If you've worked on any of the examples I discuss today, I'd love to hear from you. Reach out via email or on BlueSky. Enjoy!

Example references

1. EA Sports FC
2. NordiTrack Treadmills
3. Chipotle App
4. Apple Ultra Watch & Suunto Race Watch
5. My Northwestern App

A76 was created by Noel Childs

Season 3 on Scale is produced by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change was produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs

Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton
Our outro was read by Kari Childs

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Or become a member of the A76 Patreon at patreon.com/A76designpod
Have a question or comment, email noel@A76pod.com
and connect with us on Bluesky

This is an A76 Patreon preview Icebreak episode coming off my interview with Tracy Kramer, President of BuzzCo. If you haven't listened to that interview you can find it here.

If you're new to A76's Patreon, Icebreak episodes are exclusive for members, where I talk about my production of the podcast, break down some of the discussions coming out of my free interviews. I bring new ideas here, things I’m kicking around and I share additional interview content.

You can sign up for the A76 Design Pod Patreon here.

Today's full Icebreak episode, is part 3 of a theoretical series—what if there was an AI Assistant trained on all my personal data and was so well crafted that it essentially was a digital version of me—a NoelAI. And with a rough voice from a tough week I ideate around counter points to parts 1 and 2. Because we love dualistic thinking here at A76. And it makes for a stronger and deeper exploration. Plus Tracy and I play the ThinkFast game.

Keep designing. Keep Growing. And keep making a positive impact.

~Noel

A76 was created by Noel Childs

Season 3 on Scale is produced by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change was produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs

Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton
Our outro was read by Kari Childs

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Or become a member of the A76 Patreon at patreon.com/A76designpod
Have a question or comment, email noel@A76pod.com
and connect with us on Bluesky

In today’s episode I chat with Tracy Kramer. Tracy is the president of Buzz Company, a talent and recruitment agency based out of Chicago. I originally met Tracy while at design school, and she’s lead BuzzCo from a place of empathy and empowerment for decades. With roots in design, she just gets designers. And she loves not only helping designers find jobs but taking care of her people.

We touch upon the state of the industry, the necessary changes BuzzCo has made over the years, a bit around AI and promoting yourself in a genuine way. Plus Tracy talks about how she went from designer to business owner.

I’ve partnered with her in the past and would recommend BuzzCo to anyone and everyone. Woman owned and family operated, BuzzCo truly are the guardians of creativity and Chicago pride, as they say on their website.

You can also hear the ThinkFast game I do with Tracy as part of a new A76 Patreon episode dropping next week. If you’re interested in supporting A76, check out patreon.com/A76designpod. You'll get exclusive episodes, all the ThinkFast games from my interviews this season and you can hear my series NoelAI—where I conceptualize what it would be like to have a hyper personalized AI assistant trained on my data.

Hope you enjoy my chat with Tracy Kramer.

A76 was created by Noel Childs

Season 3 on Scale is produced by Noel Childs
Season 2 on Change was produced by Noel Childs
Season 1 on AI was produced by Casey Hudetz and Noel Childs

Our theme music was composed and performed by Stella Solveig
and mixed and mastered by Abbey Nettleton
Our outro was read by Kari Childs

If you like what you hear, please give us a rating.
Or become a member of the A76 Patreon at patreon.com/A76designpod
Have a question or comment, email noel@A76pod.com
and connect with us on Bluesky