Free Daily Podcast Summary
UX Murder Mystery: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Brian Crowley and Eve Eden
Where do true crime, business and technology intersect? When another product has been found dead. The cause? UX failure. We investigate what's killing your customer experience. Think true crime, but for failed designs. We dig into the real stories behind UX disasters. LinkedIn's algorithm nightmare. Paywalls that killed communities. Corporate decisions that poison good design. Every case has clues. Every problem has a solution. Got a UX horror story? Send us your evidence.
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 4 days ago1h 5m
Stop Selling Change: Why Transformation Keeps Failing (ft. Erin Stadler)
Deloitte invented another word for how organizations should be: changefulness. Erin Stadler read it and laughed out loud. Brian Crowley and Eve Eden investigate why organizational change keeps failing with someone who stopped consulting on it and built the alternative instead. Erin spent 13 years as a founder and COO at Boomtown testing one question: if people actually adopt these practices, does it create an adaptable organization? It did. People who joined said they could never go back to a traditional company. Erin breaks down why transformations bomb at scale, the principles layer most rollouts skip, how her team created more change by never saying the word change, and why she thinks change management needs to go away as a concept. She gives her honest read on SAFe as one of the first certified SAFe consultants, and on the "is agile dead" debate. Then the AI turn: companies grew access to AI 50% in a year, fewer than 60% of people who have it use it daily, and 84% never redesigned a single workflow around it. Erin's diagnosis: AI is exposing how poorly organizations design the way they work. The episode closes with why everyone in your company is now a product manager, what Netflix's CPTO gets right about systems thinkers, and one question to ask about your standup this week. Erin Stadler: https://www.erinstadler.com/ Netflix CPTO Elizabeth Stone on Lenny's Podcast: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/netflix-cpto-on-ai-and-the-future Hosted by Brian J. Crowley & Eve Eden Edited by Kelsey Smith Intro Animation & Logo Design by Brian J. Crowley Music by Nicolas Lee A joint production of EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2026 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden questions@UXmurdermystery.com Thank you for watching and or listening! For informational/entertainment purposes only. Views are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. Discussions of real companies/individuals use publicly available info for critique and education. Not factual assertions about motives or intentions. Creators disclaim liability for damages from reliance on content. Events may be dramatized for illustrative purposes.
- 2 weeks ago52 min
Ghosted by the Machine: Who Really Rejected Your Resume?
Rejected ten minutes after applying. No feedback, no human contact, no explanation. Millions of job seekers know this exact experience, and most of them blame the same suspect: the AI. But is that who actually did it? In this episode, Brian Crowley and Eve Eden bring in an expert witness from inside the system: Max Gerdes, Executive Director of Staffing Solutions at Motion Recruitment, who has spent more than a decade recruiting UX, UI, product, and technology talent. Max walks through what really happens after the apply button, where automated rules end and AI begins, and why an instant rejection usually isn't what candidates think it is. The investigation moves through the Mobley v. Workday lawsuit, where a candidate alleges he was rejected from more than 100 jobs by employers using AI screening tools, the false negative problem where companies measure hiring speed but not the qualified people their systems throw away, and the accountability vacuum where nobody in the chain can fully explain a consequential rejection. Then the case widens to the platforms: Indeed and Glassdoor consolidating under one owner, hundreds of millions of candidate profiles under one roof, and Eve's own poll data suggesting the job board era may already be over. The episode closes with the defense's case: what automation has genuinely made better, and which decisions should never leave human hands. Links: World Economic Forum on AI in candidate screening: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/03/ai-hiring-human-touch-recruitment/ RPJ Law on the June 2026 Mobley v. Workday ruling: https://rpjlaw.com/recent-developments-in-mobley-v-workday-california-court-allows-key-ai-hiring-bias-claims-to-move-forward/ TechCrunch on the Indeed and Glassdoor integration and layoffs: https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/11/indeed-glassdoor-to-lay-off-1300-staff/ Harvard Business Review on how AI assessment changes candidate behavior: https://hbr.org/2025/07/how-ai-assessment-tools-affect-job-candidates-behavior Motion Recruitment: https://motionrecruitment.com Hosted by Brian J. Crowley & Eve Eden Edited by Kelsey Smith Intro Animation & Logo Design by Brian J. Crowley Music by Nicolas Lee A joint production of EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2026 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden questions@UXmurdermystery.com Thank you for watching and or listening! For informational/entertainment purposes only. Views are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. Discussions of real companies/individuals use publicly available info for critique and education. Not factual assertions about motives or intentions. Creators disclaim liability for damages from reliance on content. Events may be dramatized for illustrative purposes.
- 3 weeks ago54 min
Not Lovin' It: How the McDonald's App Turned Customers Into the Product
McDonald's built one of the most downloaded food apps in the world, and the customers using it describe a crime scene: orders charged and canceled with no refund path, deals that vanish at the register, rewards that fail to scan in front of a line of strangers, and a privacy policy that says the company may profile their psychological trends and behavior. In this zoomed in episode, Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden investigate how an app can be a business triumph and a customer experience disaster at the same time? Links: WFTV Action 9 investigation on canceled orders and refunds: https://www.wftv.com/news/local/not-lovin-it-mcdonalds-customers-have-mobile-app-complaints/Y3ASQYX6XNDDFPCTS56U6S3YZA/ Tasting Table on the disappearing app deals: https://www.tastingtable.com/2099096/problem-mcdonalds-mobile-app-according-to-customers/ BigGo News on app surveillance and two tier pricing: https://biggo.com/news/202510090122_McDonalds_App_Privacy_Concerns Daily Meal on what the app knows about you: https://www.thedailymeal.com/1455292/mcdonalds-app-tracks-activity/ McDonald's Privacy Statement: https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/privacy.html McDonald's app page with the August 2026 terms update: https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/download-app.html Hosted by Brian J. Crowley & Eve Eden Edited by Kelsey Smith Intro Animation & Logo Design by Brian J. Crowley Music by Nicolas Lee A joint production of EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2026 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden questions@UXmurdermystery.com Thank you for watching and or listening! For informational/entertainment purposes only. Views are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. Discussions of real companies/individuals use publicly available info for critique and education. Not factual assertions about motives or intentions. Creators disclaim liability for damages from reliance on content. Events may be dramatized for illustrative purposes.
- Aug 13, 20261h 45m
She Built AI at Google. Now She's Warning Newsrooms.
The news is on the table and AI is holding the murder weapon. Or is it? This week, UX Murder Mystery hosts Brian Crowley and Eve Eden interrogate a witness who has worked both sides of the story: Ovetta Sampson, founder of Right AI, former Director of UX for Google's Core Machine Learning, and a onetime police-beat reporter who learned early to second source everything, including her own mother. Together they examine the evidence: the "AI is inevitable" narrative the major outlets keep pushing, the bias that gets baked in before anyone touches a keyboard, the graduates booing tech executives at commencement, and the artists fighting back by poisoning the training data itself. Ovetta runs her Human Engagement Risks framework over the modern newsroom, offers real advice for small outlets with no ethics team, and explains what it takes to build AI with equity as a load-bearing value instead of a press release. Then comes the verdict: is the tech industry, as it stands today, good for democracy? CONNECT WITH OVETTA: Ovetta Sampson: https://www.ovetta-sampson.com/ Right AI: https://www.rightainow.com/ Designing with AI Training: https://www.rightainow.com/designing-with-ai Designing for AI Training (cohort starts Sept. 9): https://www.rightainow.com/designing-for-ai How Risky Is Your AI Design? Free MindfulAI™ Risk Assessment Tool: https://www.ovetta-sampson.com/mindfulai-diagnostic-tool Open for Speaking Events: https://www.ovetta-sampson.com/book-ovetta REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE: AISHA: https://aisha.ai/ Coded Bias (PBS Independent Lens): https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/coded-bias/ CREDITS: Hosted by Brian J. Crowley & Eve Eden Edited by Kelsey Smith Intro Animation & Logo Design by Brian J. Crowley Music by Nicolas Lee A joint production of EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2026 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden questions@UXmurdermystery.com Thank you for watching and or listening! For informational/entertainment purposes only. Views are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. Discussions of real companies/individuals use publicly available info for critique and education. Not factual assertions about motives or intentions. Creators disclaim liability for damages from reliance on content. Events may be dramatized for illustrative purposes.
- Aug 6, 20261h 9m
It's a Trap: How Disney's $350M Star Wars Hotel ended after 18 Months
Disney spent $350 million on a Star Wars hotel where guests live inside the story for two days. It closed in 18 months. In this episode, Brian Crowley and Eve Eden investigate the Galactic Starcruiser with two guests who actually stayed aboard and loved every minute: Katie Swindler, author of Life & Death Design, and Jacob Swindler, environmental and experiential design leader. Together they dig into the mystery at the heart of the case: how does an experience with record guest satisfaction die this fast? From the $6,000 price wall and the app that held the whole story together, to Jenny Nicholson's viral teardown and the business math that never worked, this is a story about what happens when great design meets a doomed model. Katie and Jacob also share how the lessons of the Starcruiser are shaping Badgerton, their own immersive retreat on 107 acres of Wisconsin prairie. Links: Badgerton: https://badgerton.com/ Badgerton blog: https://badgerton.substack.com Life and Death Design by Katie Swindler: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/life-and-death-design/ Katie Swindler: http://www.katieswindler.com Jenny Nicholson, "The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0CpOYZZZW4 Hosted by Brian J. Crowley & Eve Eden Edited by Kelsey Smith Intro Animation & Logo Design by Brian J. Crowley Music by Nicolas Lee A joint production of EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories ©2026 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden questions@UXmurdermystery.com Thank you for watching and or listening! For informational/entertainment purposes only. Views are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. Discussions of real companies/individuals use publicly available info for critique and education. Not factual assertions about motives or intentions. Creators disclaim liability for damages from reliance on content. Events may be dramatized for illustrative purposes.
- Jul 30, 202649 min
Are we Waymo's Tests?
A driverless Waymo rolls within a few feet of a guns-drawn felony stop in downtown Los Angeles while officers shout directions at a car with no one inside. The company says the whole encounter lasted about 15 seconds. Months later in San Francisco, passengers film themselves pleading with their robotaxi as it drives directly over lit fireworks on the Fourth of July, while a bystander waves at the car to stop. Nobody is hurt in either case. But these are not isolated moments: a robotaxi cutting through a DUI checkpoint with nobody to ticket, 50 vehicles pranked down a dead-end street, dead-battery Waymos towed out of holiday gridlock tell a bigger story. In this episode, Brian and Eve dig into the latest state of Waymo: over 100 million driverless miles, zero reported fatalities, a rapid expansion into new cities and freeways, and a growing pile of edge cases the system was never designed to meet. What happens when the service works exactly as designed and still fails the moment? Who is accountable when there is no driver? And Eve asks the question every rider should be sitting with: are we the tests? For informational/entertainment purposes only. Views are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. Discussions of real companies/individuals use publicly available info for critique and education. Not factual assertions about motives or intentions. Creators disclaim liability for damages from reliance on content. Events may be dramatized for illustrative purposes.
- Jul 24, 202654 min
Rejected at 1:50 AM???
Derek Mobley applied to over 100 jobs in seven years. He was rejected every single time — sometimes within the hour, once at 1:50 in the morning. No human ever read his application. Now his lawsuit against Workday — the software vendor, not the employers — could redefine who's accountable when an algorithm decides who gets to work. This week, Brian and Eve are joined by Jess Lowry, host of the Deprecated Human podcast, whose own research tracks the job opportunities that vanish inside AI hiring pipelines. Together they dig into the three-alarm fire at the company that literally sells "human capital management": the first-of-its-kind AI discrimination case (Mobley v. Workday), the Salesforce-linked data breach that spawned a wave of class actions, and 2,100 layoffs at a company posting record profits — all while the AI at the center of it all is still screening candidates today. What happens when the system managing humans stops seeing them? Let's investigate. Guest: Jess Lowry — Deprecated Human podcast Listen to Deprecated Human: https://open.spotify.com/show/7n3qeYf0aNNOF8Rvh3Kkcb For informational/entertainment purposes only. Views are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. Discussions of real companies/individuals use publicly available info for critique and education. Not factual assertions about motives or intentions. Creators disclaim liability for damages from reliance on content. Events may be dramatized for illustrative purposes.
- Jul 16, 202640 min
If Roblox Won't Protect Kids, They Won't Protect the Business
A five year build. Twelve thousand players. Gone in an afternoon. This week on UX Murder Mystery, we reopen the Roblox case file, and this time the victims are not just kids. They are the developers who built the platform's billion dollar economy. Back in Episode 3, we put Roblox on trial for a design culture that treated child safety as a cost center. The verdict then: platform design is safety design. This week, Roblox proves that promise runs in only one direction, and the developers are next. Hackers have moved on from stealing rare items to stealing entire games. Using fake job offers and malware, they hijack developer accounts and walk away with the games, the groups, and the Robux revenue. Then comes the real crime scene: a recovery process so broken that a 15 year old fought support for over a month with nothing to show for it, while stolen games were restored only after a journalist emailed for comment. Brian and Eve break down where the UX actually failed: the missing chain of custody that cannot tell theft from a sale, the burden of proof dumped onto the victim with the least power, and a support system whose only working escalation path is "be newsworthy." We close on the money behind the framing and the wall of lawsuits now surrounding the platform, from a federal MDL to a securities class action triggered by the very safety features the child safety cases demanded. Same defendant. Same design culture. New body count. Further reading: 404 Media, "Hackers Are Hijacking Entire Roblox Games Now" (Joseph Cox) https://www.404media.co/hackers-are-hijacking-entire-roblox-games-now/ BleepingComputer, on the 610,000 account theft ring arrests https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-arrested-for-hijacking-and-selling-610-000-roblox-accounts/ Hosted by Brian J. Crowley & Eve Eden / Edited by Kelsey Smith / Intro Animation & Logo Design by Brian J. Crowley / Music by Nicolas Lee / A joint production of EVE | User Experience Design Agency and CrowleyUX | Where Systems Meet Stories / ©2026 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden / questions@UXmurdermystery.com / "Thank you for watching and or listening!" For informational/entertainment purposes only. Views are commentary and speculation, not statements of fact. Discussions of real companies/individuals use publicly available info for critique and education. Not factual assertions about motives or intentions. Creators disclaim liability for damages from reliance on content. Events may be dramatized for illustrative purposes.
About UX Murder Mystery
Where do true crime, business and technology intersect? When another product has been found dead. The cause? UX failure. We investigate what's killing your customer experience. Think true crime, but for failed designs. We dig into the real stories behind UX disasters. LinkedIn's algorithm nightmare. Paywalls that killed communities. Corporate decisions that poison good design. Every case has clues. Every problem has a solution. Got a UX horror story? Send us your evidence.
Customized Recaps
AI-powered recaps with compact key takeaways, quotes, and insights.
Straight to Your Inbox
Get key takeaways from UX Murder Mystery in a 5-minute read.
Save Hours Every Week
Stay current on your favorite podcasts without falling behind.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Podzilla's UX Murder Mystery daily summary?
It's a free AI-powered email that summarizes new episodes of UX Murder Mystery as soon as they're published. You get the key takeaways, notable quotes, and links & mentions — all in a quick read.
How does the UX Murder Mystery podcast summary work?
When a new episode drops, our AI transcribes and analyzes it, then generates a personalized summary tailored to your interests and profession. It's delivered to your inbox every morning.
Is this an official UX Murder Mystery product?
No. Podzilla is an independent service that summarizes publicly available podcast content. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by Brian Crowley and Eve Eden.
Can I get summaries of other podcasts too?
Absolutely! The free plan covers up to 3 podcasts. Upgrade to Pro for 15, or Premium for 50. Browse our full catalog at /podcasts.
How often does UX Murder Mystery release new episodes?
UX Murder Mystery publishes weekly. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
What topics does UX Murder Mystery cover?
UX Murder Mystery covers topics including News, Arts, Design. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
Start getting UX Murder Mystery summaries tomorrow morning.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.