The beginning of this journey into International User Experience. I look forward to what this class has to uncover when it comes to global UX.
Let’s begin with in class exercises.
In Class Activity 1: Time – How We Represent It
In Class Activity 2: REVERSE ENGINEER (Z bar)
What sort of convention (legal, safety, etc.) do you see related to or connected with it?
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- Legal purposes: listing ingredients and allergen statements (for allergy purposes, prevent lawsuits)
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- Branding
- Organic branding
What does it tell you about the business in that culture or country?
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- Branding
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- Active lifestyle
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- Health conscious
- Grab and go, individualized, fit into the pocket, shape of bar (rectangular shaped) makes it easy to grab and eat
What does it tell you about the standards or value in that culture or country?
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- Care about health, nutrition, lifestyle
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- All about being active
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- Standardized packaging and bars
- Hygiene: individually wrapped bars
What kinds of assumptions does the artifact make about its audience?
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- People care about healthy snacks for their kids
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- People want to hear from people in similar positions
- Personal touch
What literacy skills are required by the audience?
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- Know how to read a nutrition label
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- Read the allergen statement (parents are buying for kids and their kid might have allergies)
- Different color for each flavor
In class activity 3: Comparing Cultural Values
Quotes
“UX starts with understanding the users, but it’s not enough to just do a quick usability test or a few interviews, ticking off an item on a list by rote. We learned that doing user research right means putting your assumptions on the table and doing the work to either support or debunk them. It means taking the time to be open, to listen for the nuances of cultural perspectives. And it means helping all team members understand the messages of the research.” Global UX, Ch. 1
The above quote resonated with me and reminded me of my summer internship experience where I had to advocate for the users and trying to get my team members to understand my findings and recommendations based on the research. There was one PM who was set in his ways and what he wanted to hear. When I presented something that contradicted his assumption, he would fight back with a piece of information that somewhat supported his assumption. But I had to remind him that we want to create features that best fit our users’ needs and what he wants to create is not it at the moment. By the end of summer, this PM became a huge user research advocate.
“Perhaps thinking globally starts by simply experiencing more of the world.” Global UX, Ch. 2
This quote makes me feel like maybe I’m already a little bit of a global person due to my parents’ love for traveling and taking my brothers and I on family vacations around the U.S. and Asia. In retrospect, I very much am grateful for all these vacations even when I may not have enjoyed them as much as a child.
“Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination.” Harrari, “The Tree of Knowledge”
I never thought of it like this that things like religion, government, cities, are all based on our collective imagination.
Exploration
Reading the section about the new model for open innovation reminded me of what Lyft has done recently for their autonomous vehicle movement. When I was interviewing for their UX research internship position, they sent me many articles to read, and a few of the articles were about their belief and work in autonomous vehicles which led them to create an open platform, and the section about the new model for open innovation in chapter 2 reminded me about this.
https://take.lyft.com/open-platform/
The purpose of the open platform is for them to have a way they can collaborate with partners around the world to create a safe autonomous vehicle ride with the data collected from around the world because they believe autonomous vehicles are the future.
Personal inspiration:
The part about being able to be a global person even without traveling outside of our country intrigued me. I like the idea that I can become a global thinker without having to travel all over the world.
Sketch
Hannah's Process Book 