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Jason Buhle, PhD
Associate Professor of Applied Psychology at USC
Professional Background
Jason Buhle is a prominent educator and expert in user experience (UX) research, currently teaching graduate students at the University of Southern California (USC). With an impressive career spanning over 18 years, Jason has honed his abilities in designing, conducting, and publishing research within the spheres of user experience, experimental psychology, and neuroscience. His dual expertise in academia and industry makes him a valuable asset to his students and clients alike, bridging theoretical knowledge with practical applications.
Throughout his career, Jason has taken on various roles that emphasize his depth of knowledge in UX design and strategy. With 9 years spent researching and developing digital products, he has worked as a UX strategist, researcher, startup founder, and consultant. This diverse background has enabled him to develop a robust understanding of the interplay between technology and user behavior, which he is passionate about sharing with the next generation of UX professionals.
Jason's exceptional communication skills are evidenced by his impressive body of work, including 16 peer-reviewed publications that have collectively garnered over 5,000 citations. His ability to convey complex ideas clearly and effectively is further demonstrated by his extensive engagement in academic and industry conferences, where he has presented over 30 times. His dedication to teaching and mentoring students is reflected in his award-winning teaching record, underscoring his commitment to fostering learning and understanding in the field of UX research.
In addition to his teaching role, Jason has overseen and led thousands of UX research studies for a remarkable list of high-profile clients, including Google, Meta, Amazon, eBay, and Wells Fargo, among others. Through these collaborations, he has helped shape the user experience strategies for various organizations, ensuring that digital products are both user-friendly and effective.
Education and Achievements
Jason Buhle's educational background is as impressive as his professional journey. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Psychology with a specialization in Cognitive Neuroscience from Columbia University, one of the leading research institutions in the world. This rigorous academic training provided him with a solid foundation in understanding human behavior, cognitive processes, and the underlying neurological mechanisms that inform user experience design.
Before attaining his Ph.D., Jason earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Politics from Pomona College, which helped shape his analytical thinking and research skills. His interdisciplinary approach allows him to draw connections between human behavior, societal trends, and effective UX practices, enriching his contributions to both academic and practical realms.
Over the years, Jason has demonstrated a strong commitment to advancing the field of user experience research through his involvement with various organizations. He has served as an Editorial Reviewer on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Usability Studies, contributing his expertise to the growth and dissemination of knowledge within the field. Furthermore, as a member of the Professional Advisory Council for the Master of Science in Applied Psychology Program at USC, he plays a pivotal role in guiding curriculum development and enhancing the academic experience of graduate students.
Achievements
Jason's extensive career is marked by numerous accolades and professional experiences that highlight his impact on the UX field and academia. His previous roles have included:
- Managing Director and Director of UX Strategy at AnswerLab: In these positions, Jason led teams in conducting user research, developing strategic insights, and providing clients with data-driven solutions to enhance the user experience of their digital products.
- Formerly Head of Product at Books That Grow: Here, Jason utilized his skills to design educational resources that empower students to grow and thrive in their learning environments.
- Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University: His teaching experience at one of the country's leading institutions illustrates his dedication to academia and his commitment to training future leaders in the field.
- Fellow Representative to the Board at Roothbert Fund Inc: This role allowed Jason to engage with community initiatives and advocate for educational opportunities that benefit individuals seeking to develop their skills and careers.
Overall, Jason Buhle stands out in the realm of UX research not only for his impressive academic credentials and professional experience but also for his unwavering commitment to teaching and mentoring the next generation of UX designers and researchers. His extensive work with esteemed organizations and his passion for user-centered design make him a key figure in advancing the standards of the UX field.
Highlights
If you are interested in UX research in entertainment and social media, please join us online or in person at USC for the inaugural UXRLA event this Friday, April 26th!
Check out this fantastic lineup: ⭐️Kathryn Campbell from Warner Music Group ⭐️Morgan Hammerstrom from Snap Inc. ⭐️Cindy K. from Cash App
After the event, stick around for in person networking with food and drinks, hosted by the USC MS in Applied Psychology Program.
For MAPP students and alums, we have a special in person pre-event where hiring managers will grill you with mock interview questions! DM me or reach out to the program office for details.
We are hoping this will be the first event in a long running annual series. Come so someday you can tell the kids, ‘I was when they started back in ‘24!’
This event is a partnership between the USC MS in Applied Psychology Program and Alec Levin, Maggi Mitchell-Levin, and all the great folks at Learners. (And I just want to say working with Learners is a dream—they know event planning like I know breathing.)
#uxresearch #userresearch #designresearch #UXReducation #appliedpsychology #UXrevents #UXRLA
Are you a UX research agency or in-house operations team looking for talent?
Last month, AnswerLab laid off nearly 50 people. I personally know many of them to be fantastically talented. Many have been in this industry for years. A few have been in this industry for over a decade.
This is an incredible opportunity to bring on people who know the highly specialized UX research agency space. These are people who have collectively sold, delivered, managed, and performed research operations or tech support for many thousands of UX research projects. They know how to delight the top clients in our industry and how to do so at scale. Honestly, even if you aren’t looking for talent right now, I wouldn’t pass up the chance to get people like this. They will come in on day one with all the skill sets you need to grow your business.
And if you are not growing, why don’t you take a look at some of the experienced business development/strategy folks AnswerLab let go? They have spent years selling to top UXR buyers. They will surely pay for themselves before long.
I also think many of these folks would be perfect for an in-house research operations or vendor management team. They know tons of ways to maximize research support efficiency and have extensive knowledge of how vendors operate—many have worked for several agencies—so they could bring a trove of useful knowledge to your team.
If you are at all interested, please feel free to share in the comments or DM me and I will try to help make a connection for you.
#uxresearch #userresearch #designresearch #uxrvendors
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
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Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.