Act 03
Scene 42 Featuring Meltem Naz Kaso and Javier Bargas Avila
Meltem Naz Kaso and Javier Bargas Avila explore burnout in UX through research, lived experience, and the reality of an unstable job market. They separate stress from burnout, explain why workload alone is a misleading diagnosis, and show how fear, power dynamics, and layoffs can quietly reshape behavior across teams.
- How burnout differs from stress and why misdiagnosis leads to the wrong fixes
- How job insecurity undermines psychological safety and pushes teams into risk avoidance
- What leaders and individuals can do using boundaries, support systems, and better education to prevent burnout
They argue that psychological safety is not a nice to have but a condition built on trust and job security. When security erodes, people stop speaking up, stop experimenting, and start optimizing for self protection. Design leaders can interrupt this by naming the risk, protecting focus, and creating environments where asking for help is normal.
They also frame burnout as a spectrum with different triggers and recovery paths, including distinct challenges for neurodivergent practitioners. The episode closes with practical strategies: prepare for uncertainty, set boundaries early, build community, and treat resilience as a skill without letting organizations off the hook for their responsibility.