From the last few weeks of How People Work, Sean and I decided to compile our most memorable takeaways from the guest speakers, weekly lectures, and corresponding group activities. Each of these experiences offered a lesson of analyzing emotions, perspectives, designing for inclusivity, intuition, and useability.
Jonathan Chapman opened with the statement that UI/UX is not necessarily a good solution, which could be perceived as an unpopular opinion, especially in present times where user interface design seems to be everywhere. Instead of taking time to consider the human experience and ‘feelings’, the main goal of UI/UX seems to be ultimate efficiency. His presentation was a refreshing reminder of the importance of designing with emotion. How would we consider what feelings a certain product might spark or what memories or experiences are linked to our designs? As designers, our job is to analyze and remember that certain images, products, and environments evoke different feelings and memories for people in different age groups, parts of the world, and from different backgrounds.
We also learned that design and product are never a glimpse of an idea. Instead, there are complex networks and matrices about the decision-making behind each idea. In one of the recent classes, we did an in-class activity of product analysis. Every team was assigned a random product and was asked to evaluate the intentions/goals of that product along with the worldviews, motives, values, and lifestyles of targeted consumer groups. Instead of looking into the superficial design aspects such as form and aesthetics, we dig into the questions such as: Who is the stakeholder? Who benefits from this design? Who loses in this design? By paying closer attention to these “invisible” parameters, we got the opportunity to learn how one simple design is supported with a complex decision system that contextualizes the product within the market landscape.
These lectures and activities were memorable demonstrations of how we might apply these learnings when we are outside the classroom and in our studios, and in the future, designing for our careers. Although these were fairly quick and condensed group activities, the essence of thinking about the human experience in design is a big lesson that we will be able to take away from this class.
