frog North America's Head of Service Design, Bethany Brown, joins Lou to explore the intersection of service design, operations, and AI. With roots in industrial design and global experience across firms like EPA and Engine, Bethany brings a unique lens to tackling large-scale organizational friction.
She walks us through a real-world case study from her upcoming talk at the Advancing Service Design conference (November 19-20), where her team used service design principles to help a company identify costly operational breakdowns, before applying AI to streamline processes and improve financial outcomes. Instead of leading with technology, Bethany’s approach centers on deeply understanding human workflows, mapping them visually, and uncovering where systems are failing frontline workers.
Through this lens, “operations” becomes less about rigid systems and more about the connective tissue of a service experience. And service design becomes the glue that aligns people, technology, and strategy. It’s a talk—and a conversation—not to miss.
Plus, Bethany shares the best career advice she ever received, and pays tribute to the educator who helped her realize design is an ever-evolving discipline, not a fixed path.
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frog North America's Head of Service Design, Bethany Brown, joins Lou to explore the intersection of service design, operations, and AI. With roots in industrial design and global experience across firms like EPA and Engine, Bethany brings a unique lens to tackling large-scale organizational friction.
She walks us through a real-world case study from her upcoming talk at the Advancing Service Design conference (November 19-20), where her team used service design principles to help a company identify costly operational breakdowns, before applying AI to streamline processes and improve financial outcomes. Instead of leading with technology, Bethany’s approach centers on deeply understanding human workflows, mapping them visually, and uncovering where systems are failing frontline workers.
Through this lens, “operations” becomes less about rigid systems and more about the connective tissue of a service experience. And service design becomes the glue that aligns people, technology, and strategy. It’s a talk—and a conversation—not to miss.
Plus, Bethany shares the best career advice she ever received, and pays tribute to the educator who helped her realize design is an ever-evolving discipline, not a fixed path.
From Hype to Insight: Llewyn Paine on AI, UX, and Critical Thinking
Rosenfeld Review Podcast
30 minutes 12 seconds
6 months ago
From Hype to Insight: Llewyn Paine on AI, UX, and Critical Thinking
What happens when a cognitive psychologist turned UX researcher brings a critical eye to AI? Dr. Llewyn Paine shares her unique perspective at the intersection of emerging technology and user research. With experience spanning neuromarketing, 3D television, and mixed reality, Llewyn has seen the hype cycles come and go—and learned to spot the gap between promise and practical value.
Llewyn and Lou explore the parallels between now-defunct technologies and today’s AI surge, noting how often new tools are overmarketed before their implications are truly understood. Llewyn urges researchers to engage with AI not as passive users but as experimenters: to test, retest, document, and analyze like scientists. Her recent workshop revealed how even identical prompts to the same model can yield wildly different results—an important reminder that AI is non-deterministic and context-sensitive.
Llewyn also shares a behind-the-scenes look at curating the Designing with AI 2025 conference, built around both the realities of today and the creative possibilities of tomorrow. She reminds us that critical thinking, experimentation, and thoughtful documentation are the UX research community’s superpowers in this unpredictable AI era.
Rosenfeld Review Podcast
frog North America's Head of Service Design, Bethany Brown, joins Lou to explore the intersection of service design, operations, and AI. With roots in industrial design and global experience across firms like EPA and Engine, Bethany brings a unique lens to tackling large-scale organizational friction.
She walks us through a real-world case study from her upcoming talk at the Advancing Service Design conference (November 19-20), where her team used service design principles to help a company identify costly operational breakdowns, before applying AI to streamline processes and improve financial outcomes. Instead of leading with technology, Bethany’s approach centers on deeply understanding human workflows, mapping them visually, and uncovering where systems are failing frontline workers.
Through this lens, “operations” becomes less about rigid systems and more about the connective tissue of a service experience. And service design becomes the glue that aligns people, technology, and strategy. It’s a talk—and a conversation—not to miss.
Plus, Bethany shares the best career advice she ever received, and pays tribute to the educator who helped her realize design is an ever-evolving discipline, not a fixed path.
