I have often thought about this question. What defines the User Experience trends? Is it even a topic worth discussing?
A friend of mine (working at HFI) has started the UX Trendspotting group. The topic in itself intrigues me. I would presume that in the larger companies there would be dedicated groups to look into these trends and identify such things for their teams to create products for the future.
But how do small companies identify them. This is where I think a group like this could be really useful.
UX trends could be seen through different eyes. Is it defined by technology? Or does User’s needs define the trends? Or is it entirely business driven. The logical conclusion would be that it cannot be individually and it has to be thought of it collectively.
Point in case for the technology defining User Experience, could be seen in the rise of touch screen phones and tablets. With technology becoming more affordable and a lot of Open Source initiatives thriving, the notion of providing a better User Experience driven by technology is evident.
However many would argue that its not technology but the User’s needs that define the UX trends. This user’s needs is often revolving around multiple things. One is the need to solve a problem that the user base is facing. A lot of the innovation happens around that. The other factor governing the User’s needs (which is more prominent these days unfortunately) is the peer pressure and societal norms.
What in my opinions are the UX trends that are being defined presently? To answer that I think it is important to look more wholistically than to be looking into the specifics. It is important that one looks are the numerous issues that are . . . → Read More: What defines UX trends?
I have always been fascinated with technology, and then Design happened. Over the past few years, I have also got interested in how Design and Technology can be used to create products and solutions for creating a larger Social Impact and is beneficial to the people at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
Came across this TED talk by designer Vinay Venkataraman who talks about tinkering ideas to create such products.
Inspiring and Fascinating stuff.
Recently a friend shared an article on how the term UX killed Usability. The article per se was (in my opinion) a personal opinion, with a lot of pointers signifying the same, from a person who is passionate about Usability, but the article also raised a very valid point that I often try to drive across in my workshops.
From the article “Usability as a term is pretty much dead and has been replaced (not very well) by UX, meaning user experience.”
This statement reminded me of the numerous discussions I have around this. Here I put down a few reasons on why I think the above is happening.
I think this is a classic debate that has been going on for quite some time now. I have often addressed this point in a lot of my workshops and insist that now it all comes under the umbrella of UX. I have often proposed that we address ourselves as UX professionals more than anything else.
While earlier you could be an Information Architect, or Usability “Engineer”, or Graphic Designer, or User Interface Designer separately, these days its more about knowing (and excelling at one or couple) a gamut of skills.
I think the UX professionals are the most T shaped professionals (as outlined by the McKinsey & Co) . Though the arms of the T these days are too wide! Spanning from Design to Business to Technology!
This UX driven approach is also evident when I did a lot of recruitment for companies. While you want the candidate to be strong at one aspect, either Usability or Interaction Design or Graphic Design, you do intend to look if they have other skills. And that recruitment drives have often led to a lot of professionals present themselves as UX professionals.
I . . . → Read More: The T shaped UX professional
Notes from conversations with an un-informed journalist. A few days ago I was having a twitter exchange with a journalist who had written about the need for India to have more Design schools. Actually the person is not a journalist but a doctor turned art appreciator / collector who is writing on design.
This journalist put up an article with the title that China has 400 design schools and India has only 2. The headline put me off so much that I decided to give her a lesson 101 on the state of design education in India.
You can read the article here: China has 400 design schools, India only 2.
The points that follow were a result of conversations with the ‘journalist’ , a few other designers, and myself.
It is unbelievable that a media house like the Times of India group, which runs the Economic Times (ET) business newspaper would care to publish an article which is so misinformed. ET is widely popular business newspaper and the impact of such a improperly informed research would be large.
Many people who commented on the article pointed out that India has more than just 2 design schools. Anyone interested in Design in India would tell you that there are many more. It was left to the reader to guess which are the 2 design schools. There are more than 10 design schools, in India; which I know is still low, but still the article should not be so misleading.
So me and another friend set out to find the person who had written the article. Got to know the twitter handle of the person and hence followed a twitter exchange in which we got to know the further misconceptions that people have about the Design education in India.
I mentioned . . . → Read More: Be a Design Evangelist
One of the amazing things about being in Bangalore, is that you are always surrounded by some amazing people, who are so passionate about what they do. It is no wonder that it is the Startup city in India and you get to meet amazing entrepreneurs. Dhiraj and Peeyush from Canvera are two such folks!
I have been a loyal Canvera customer since quite some time now, and was recently at a Tweetup organized by Dhiraj and team. It was something that I could not miss, especially when the a thing on the agenda was to show around the Canvera’s production facility. As a photographer, it is very simple to just see the final output in the form of a photo book. But it has always fascinated me to know the level of complexity that one goes through to get a book that is more like a piece of art in itself. The awesome books that come out are a treasure of memories and a testimony to that is that all my clients who have received the Canvera photobooks have loved it!
Needless to say, all were amazed at the amazing facility in terms of the equipments that are being at par with the best in the world, the quality of paper and the processes in place.
What impressed me most was the attention to detail that is paid at every step. Whether its in the consistency across printers or the lamination of the pages or the cutting of paper or the multi level quality assurance checks or to ensuring privacy of the customers and the photographers.
It may sound easy, but when you get to know that all these have to be done in a maximum turnaround time of 48 hours, you are left amazed! Moreover the challenges that . . . → Read More: Why I love Canvera – notes from a Tweetup.
Everyday I log onto twitter, I read about someone complaining about a problem they are facing with a particular service that they use. In almost realtime, a lot of others who face similar problem simply re-tweet the initial tweet about the complain. What this could result to is a negative publicity of the service, to the extent of a fear of losing a customer. In almost no time, there are the representatives from the company in context, replying to the tweets and assuring of a quick turnaround to the customer’s concerns. If that is not enough there are social channels that people reach out to, these days when they do not get a response.
That’s the new age customer relationship management and goes by the term Social CRMs. A lot of debate goes on the legitimacy of the phrase Social CRM. On one side of the argument, there are the believers who think that this is just another fancy term, riding the Social Wave, and on the other side of the argument you have people who swear by anything social and believe it to be of an immense value add. I for one do think that SCRM is here to stay, and it can only promise to grow with more and more businesses adopting social media technologies.
I deal with design and through this article I wish to seek out the challenges that designers face and should consider when designing for Social CRMs. It may be noted that these are just an indicative list and not a definitive one. With changes happening almost everyday (Facebook introduced the Timeline as I write this), the challenges can only increase.
In the earlier days of the traditional CRMs, the engagement with the customer happened around three domains, ie. a. Sales, b. Marketing and . . . → Read More: The designer’s challenge to Social CRMs
I am a firm believer of the point that designers (and just about anyone in the creative field) needs to be a good critic. They need to critique not only the innumerable work of others but also of oneself. I also insist upon the value of critique and the art of critiquing a lot in my design workshops too. In this respect I would like to share this semantic differential diagram that I had come across during my masters studies.
There are two key things that the designer has to consider, when looking into doing a critique of things. 1. Audience and 2. Content.
1. Audience The first important thing is the audience. For any critique exercise to take place, understanding the audience is vert important. Once one has an understanding of the audience, they can look to deciding the language and the tone for the critique. In my opinion the language should be kept simple and in easy to understand terms. One can adopt a particular tone depending on the audience. Whether to make it filled with case studies (if the audience is an academic audience) or to make it filled with stories / anecdotes if the audience is more laypersons.
2. Content This has two parts to it. One is the content you wish to critique on and the other is the content you write in support of the things you wish to critique on. The points to critique on could be the functional aspects, the visual and aesthetic elements of a design. The critic should look to going into the visceral, behavioral and reflective levels of a particular design (D Norman in The Design of Everyday Things) .
Species of Criticism
This above semantic differential outlines the different approaches one could take for criticism. Would love . . . → Read More: The art of critiquing
Facebook is taking the world by storm. No i mean it. They literally are. Look into the developments from the recent f8 conference where they launched the Timeline concept. It’s like a public scrapbook that is showing your lifetime (or maybe only on facebook) in a linear chronological manner. It almost appears like Facebook is on its path to supreme world dominancy. They already have more than 700 million users and that is a huge number! The one thing that I really hope is that Facebook can take the position in which it is in to make the world a better place.
Check out this concept video of what they call the Timeline.
While not all have the timeline concept enabled, a lot do have the newer facebook layout.
There is the element of the Twitter (in the way a real time ticker on the right that keeps telling you what your ‘friends’ are doing), and the Google+ (in the way the images are displayed in the timeline)
The Social platforms wars just does not stop from getting more interesting! Often I wonder where this will lead to. Let us hope that it does so without any ill effects on our souls.
One of the key things that I have learnt over the past decade of my being involved in the design field is that, it is about solving a problem. Often the problems need not be a large one. A design should solve some problem in some form. It could be a direct or an indirect solution. The results could be tangible or intangible. More often than not, we designers try to make things complex by adding complex elements to the solutions we provide. But as a firm believer of simplicity in the stuff I design, and the life I live, I know simplicity is a tough thing to attain.
Here’s a great example of how a simple design solution can be involved in creating an impact that is huge. We have heard a lot about alternative sources of energy and electricity, but here we look into an example of something that is so basic that you would think why you did not think about this earlier. It is something that we can adapt to the communities that are devoid of light and the light brings in a sense of happiness that cannot be measured.
Simple design. Impactful Design.
Information Visualization is something that has always interested me, and I am always amazed at the heights people go to illustrate huge amount of data. With more and more resources to visualize data, the Information Visualizations are now more dynamic than static.
Came across this visualization recently and was totally blown away by it! KIVA the social entreprise, showcases all its activities through this amazing InfoViz. Do check it out!
The same in static would definitely not had the same User Experience as this one does, for the viewer!
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