fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
I Want To Write…..Badly.
By: Portia W
Tags: Writers On Writing, Writers Life, Writing, Writers Block, Creative Process

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

I love writing.

I love creating new worlds for readers to escape to.

I love inviting you into my imagination.

Writing is a passion I love to share with others.

It’s my passion, period.

Being a writer and producing work at a consistent rate is HARD.

It’s highly frustrating when when my passion doesn’t produce anything. I want to and have the mentality to create a masterpiece but when I sit down, pen to paper and nothing happens!

As a writer, knowing your capabilities and having to sit through this “dry spell” is the most depressing thing. There’s no telling how long it lasts. There’s absolutely no flow of ideas from the forefront to the creative mind.

I have been on Medium for about 5 months now and I’ve read numerous articles that give advice on overcoming that dark cloud, called writers block. I have tried some of the tips and then some I’ve read and that was just it.

But, for the articles that have stuck with me that discuss creating a routine and sticking to it, I’m happy to say I have been successful in writing more; whether it be a quick jot like an idea for a blog, short story or something that contributes to my creative side. I now make it habit for me to write.

What I’ve learned on this new journey is:

The key thing with writing (and being a artist in general) is DISCIPLINE.

When I’d experience writers block, in the past, I would always wait until that rush or “light bulb” would come to me. Once that creative energy went away, I was back to being dormant and trying to get those juices flowing yet again.

Another major key with being a writer is CONSISTENCY.

Which can be the hardest part.

Consistently creating worthy content for an audience is not only intimidating but time consuming especially if you’re like me, with a full-time job (that’s already draining) and being a full-time student; coming home to write(other than school work) usually falls to the waist side. The intention is there but the action falls short, very short.

Writing this piece was something that took a while to become whole, but I wanted to defeat my inconsistent ways and discipline myself into developing a habit where I will write and complete what I have begun written.

I’d like to say thank you to the articles on Medium that I read on a day to day basis that remind me why I love writing, being a writer and must continue to be a writer.

I’d like to say thank you to Medium for creating this platform that influence writers, are influenced by writers and the overall target is for writers.
How To Deal With Writer’s Block
By: Apex Mindset
Tags: Motivation, Writing Prompts, Writing, How To Start Writing, Writers Block

Picture this.

You’re on a date with a beautiful girl. Everything seems to be going well, she’s laughing at your nerdy jokes, punching your arm, and giving you “the eyes”.

Despite your virgin-like obliviousness to her cues, you miraculously end up back at your place, with her propped up all cute and pretty on your bed.

With one thing leading to another, you are both undressed, under the silky bed sheets, passionately making out.

Her hand slides down, first along your well-defined arm, then along your chest, your abs, and finally, she reaches below, only to be greeted with a flacid zucchini.

What a disappointment.

That’s how I’d describe writer’s block.

You completed your obligations for the day, brainstormed topics to write about and the kids are fast asleep.

You have gifted three undisrupted, distraction-free hours to yourself to just write.

As soon as you go to stroke the first key, your old friend greets you again: writer’s block.

You’re sitting there, paralyzed, with your heart racing at 180bpm.

What will you do next?

Instead, of sitting down and writing, you’re rummaging through Google’s Search Results on how to overcome writer’s block.

It doesn’t seem to help alleviate you of writer’s block.

You then decide to take a 10-minute brisk walk to freshen up your mind and return with the conclusion that it was the keywords you used on Google that were the source of your misfortunes!

20 minutes later, your Google Search History looks like this:

beat writer’s block

how to stop having writer’s block

how to deal with writer’s block

positive self-affirming mantras to beat writer’s block

can i make money as a writer

is writing a dying art

top 5 books to write better

The Apex Fat Loss Protocol

gary the goat running — thank me later

airplane tickets to Australia

How to stop procrastinating

And yet not a single word has been written on your blank canvas.
Event Microsite
By: Chiara Dapor
Tags: Responsive Design, Concept Design, Microsite, UX, Interaction Design

For the 5th project of the Ironhack Bootcamp we were asked to design a website for the upcoming year’s edition of a festival. It’s an individual project and we have 2 weeks to complete it.

Goal: design a responsive website

design a Responsibilities: Market, Trend, User Researcher, Interaction, Art Director, Motion Designer, UI Developer

We were free to choose the event, and I worked with CIRCA, a Festival of Contemporary Circus which takes place in Auch, France since 1988.

CIRCA is now internationally recognised as a major event for circus arts. Every year, in October, for over a week, the Festival presents around 80 shows performed by 15 to 20 professional companies. Over the years, the Festival has become the showcase of contemporary circus. The eclectic programme, not only proposes recent shows, but also invites to really discover the amazing and marvelling circus arts of today that interact with music, dance, theatre and digital arts.

Not only a meeting point for the whole profession, the Festival is also a springboard for young up and coming artists. Every year, around 350 professionals coming from all four corners of the earth discover new shows and participate to professional meetings.

Now run by a professional team, the Festival is still supported by a large number of volunteers whose personal and social skills transform this event in a beautiful and humane experience.

Heuristic Analysis

The website use the style and coordinate image of the whole Circa hub. The event website is mainly a showcase where all the necessary information is placed. The menu on the right-top contains all the necessary information for a festival, so I decided to maintain all of them; I only decided to rename the element “THE SHOWS” and “THE FESTIVAL” and convert them respectively in “FESTIVAL 2020” and “ABOUT”. The rest of the information can be reorganised for it to occupy a more reduced space.

Site Map

From the previous analysis I decided to structure the website converting the 5 categories in the focal point of the homepage, from which the respective sub-sections are accessed.
Week 15: First Prototype
By: Claudia Russo
Tags: Food Waste, Sustainability, Thesis, Research And Development, Interaction Design

Apologies for leaving everyone hanging on an update.

📌 Introduction

I know, I know — it’s been over a month since the last time I blogged. Please forgive me.

For this long-overdue article, I will cover how my prototype did in my user testing sessions. The prototype was tested by 5 potential users, including 2 who are not currently following any sustainable journey. Remember this, as I will share an interesting insight from those 2 users.

Before diving in, let’s take a walk down memory lane: I am building a platform focused on reducing food waste. With Scrapsy, my customers will schedule weekly food waste pick-ups for composters to take and turn into compost. My platform's main value proposition comes from users signing up to get their food waste picked up and exchange it for farm-fresh produce.

Now we can move on to my prototype, the brief I provided, and the goals I set out to accomplish.

🛠 Prototype Brief & Goals

My main goal with this prototype was to see if users could grasp my concept clearly. I also aimed to validate if they could benefit from this platform instead of relying on emails and texts, as most service providers currently do. To tackle these goals, I set out to build my prototype following this user flow:

Onboarding → Choose a Provider → Schedule → Collect → Pick-Up

Most of the prototype was digitally based, but the two last steps — which are supposed to be physical actions, had to be done as digital simulations because I can’t physically fulfill these tasks. Below you will find the prototype, with the concept brief and the steps I instructed my users to follow.

🧐 Feedback

The good

- People were able to grasp the concept. “Straight to the point, very clear.”

- Goals of the brief were fulfilled, even with a few bumps.

- Cartoons + simulations were a major success.

- The 2 users who were not following any sustainable journey mentioned they would be interested in using a product like this. (Woohoo!)

The bad

- Users didn’t know how to differentiate which provider to choose.

- The recipe screen seemed confusing and out of place in the flow.

- Scheduling the time was where everyone got stuck. It wasn’t intuitive, especially using a mouse.

- There wasn’t enough emphasis on clarifying the simulations.

- Testers were too focused on the B&W color scheme.

- There were some minor grammatical issues.

The beyond -or- interesting suggestions

- Add the educational layer as part of the onboarding experience.

- Add a tracking service + map showing when providers are coming for pickups.

- Decide who and how to confirm the pickup → through a QR code?

- Be able to tip and know who the provider is for picking up as well.

- Include a donation system where users can easily fund programs for the environment.

-Keep simulations to educate the users.

- Encourage users daily with phrases + show carbon footprint scale profile with milestones + rewards system.

- Use actual seasonal content for ingredients. “Avocados are not grown in NYC.”

- Encourage + remind users to look at recipes beforehand.
Multiple mental models are bad — or “What a toilet can teach us about UX design” 🚽
By: Ed Everett
Tags: Mental Models, UX Design, Design, UX, Interaction Design

This is the flush mechanism. It’s nice and smart and looks great in our bathroom, it’s a really nice design. But does the big button do a big flush or does the big button do the action you want most often — a little flush? There’s no clue on the flush mechanism itself. That’s less good design.

As I know a bit about design theory the answer is obvious — Fitts’ law says “the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the ratio between the distance to the target and the width of the target.” What that means is bigger buttons are easier to press; so the designer must have intended the big button to do the most common action — the bigger button does a small flush.

But seeing as I also know a bit about design theory the answer is even more obvious. The designer is using a metaphor; the size of the button represents the size of the flush — the bigger button does a big flush.

Oh wait… Maybe knowing about design theory doesn’t solve this problem. (Perhaps doing some user testing would have helped though🤯)

Designing products that allow users to have more than one mental models in their heads at the same time is bad. Multiple mental models are guaranteed to to cause confusion and probably make the user feel pretty silly too. Good design helps users discard mental models as well as creating new ones — clarity comes from the absence of alternatives as well as a having distinct path forward.
My Experience at Madrasters Lime Light Talk
Tags: Madrasters, Designer, Interaction Design, Debut, Public Speaking

A talk in front of 100+ Designers.. If you told me this one year ago, I would have laughed hard. But here I am standing in front of audi-full of designers pumped up to listen to what I am gonna talk. So how did an one and half year experienced budding Designer-Developer get here?

Going back exactly one year, I was one of the people in the audi, mesmerized at meeting such talented designers from Chennai. Luckily Madrasters were looking for a new core team at the time and I applied. Few months passed by and I got a call from @JackAnto to join the core team V of Madrasters. Since that I got actively involved in madrasters events especially in the last workshop and this meetup(and I made the website for both the events).

When @JackAnto asked who is interested for the Limelight talk, I volunteered immediately. Why? Just to overcome my fears of public speaking. Little did I know that time, a lot have to do after that ‘yes, i would like to do it’. I have to come up with a talk about myself for exactly 5minutes(yeah..who wants to listen to me talking about me for 30mins).

Slide explaining what I love to do

I came up with the story of why I do what I do, and how did I get into it. After few iterations, I was able to fit it into 5 minutes. Finally, its the D-Day, after pumping speech from Santhosh Palvesh of UMM Digital, I was out to deliver what I prepared. I started of with pun in my name, followed by what my story of design and code. I don’t know how people took it, I felt good as I gave a talk in front of 100+ people.

My works — Eattrips

My works — Madrasters Workshop Website

Oh What did I talk about? Here are the slides.

Thanks for reading.
Hey, Figma experts, you are still Designers.
By: Valentino Baptista
Tags: Figma, UI, Design, UX, Interaction Design

Designers love tools. Tools, plugins, templates, inspirational and mood boards, addons… you name it.

Also, Designers suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. 30% of their time is allocated to reorganizing and renaming layers, frames, pages, and components “ad eternum”.

Today’s technology allows us to identify the most suitable tool for each design task to be performed: Magazine, Photo Editing, Logo, Icon, Typography, UI, Flowcharts…

UI designs are no longer done in Photoshop, Illustrator. Not even Sketch, Studio, or Adobe XD. Figma!

Figma and its components and variants capable of driving any designer to ecstasy are the new obsession.

Designers no longer focus on learning good Design. They are all-in in being Figma Experts in building reusable, flexible, and scalable components.

Listen: 1 input field and 1 button as the foundation for more than 400000 other different components. Ufff, don’t know about you.. But I got all goosebumps!

A short story about something that happened to me yesterday.

Whenever I have a demanding design challenge, I like to fly to Lala-land, where there are no complex or unfeasible things, timeframes, or technical limitations. One of the elements that came out of this trip was a button with an unusual shape.

Moments later I started preparing components and found myself unable to make that button a dynamic component.

The solution that for 2.3ms crossed my mind? Revert the shape to our old beloved rounded rectangle!

In the end, of course, I didn’t. I failed OCD Figma’s expectations to stick to my weird lovely button.

The goal has gone from building a better world, disrupt or innovate to create the best Figma system and library.

We get now more excited with building systems for ourselves than making the user’s life's easier, accessible, and fun.

This text was written for myself, just as a friendly reminder.
The experience of learning UX in-depth on Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF) — Review
By: Livinda Christy
Tags: UX, UX Design, Online Courses, Education, Interaction Design

It was in 2019 my colleague and I discussed one of the well-known online courses while we were waiting for the user research session. At that time I was interested to gain information about the Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF). I actually have heard of this online course since a long time ago. It was mentioned several times by my colleagues who work in the field of User Experience Design as well. Hence, the curiosity brought me to the discussion.

Based on the discussion, Interaction Design Foundation offers a comprehensive course backed by experts. If you are a fellow UX designer then you must have recognized Don Norman, a well-known design leader who writes The design of everyday things. It is a recommended book for people who are interested in learning about User Experience Design and a must-have read book for every designer. So, let’s see the people behind the executive board of Interaction Design Foundation.

Since 2002, they have been on a mission to:

teach concrete design skills

teach how to leverage the power of design in the same way companies such as Apple and Google do

in the same way companies such as Apple and Google do help us apply our new design skills to improve the quality of life for humankind

to improve the quality of life for humankind democratize education by providing top-quality, online design courses at a fraction of the cost of traditional education

by providing top-quality, online design courses at a fraction of the cost of traditional education provide the best expertise from both high-tech companies and academia

from both high-tech companies and academia facilitate learning and career advancement in 467 Local Groups in 95 countries.

Before I joined Interaction Design Foundation, I had run through their syllabus. I was impressed by the detail, structure, and comprehensiveness of every course. Therefore, I decided to join in November 2020. Once we join, we get 1-year membership and we can take as many courses. Frankly, due to the comprehensive course, I can’t even finish it in a month. I’ve just finished the course of User Research — Best Methods and Practice in March 2021. I was glad that I made it! Learning new things needs commitment and time. We can’t rush the learning process. It requires patience and a good amount of self-discipline. Since childhood, I was taught to be disciplined by my father, hence I have grown to be a dedicated person.
Get started with developing Unity x Magic Leap One
Tags: Cornell, Interaction Design, Magic Leap, Augmented Reality

Okay, before rumbling, if you have a new Magic Leap One with you, the most important thing is to fully charge your headset. Why? This will save tons of your precious time which I’ll explain soon.

Headset setting — adjustable parts setting/ wifi configuration/ eye calibration Unity Development setting — SDK locating/ Sign in with Creator certificate Headset Lumin OS Update (Caution!!!! This is the part screwed me)

Headset setting

This part is quite easy, simply follow the interactive guide once you turn on the device, if aiming for developing on the device, make sure you go to the settings to allow the Creator mode/related settings and pick the wifi that’s the same as your working computer connection.

Unity Development setting

This part is well documented on the creator site as well. You might run into the problem that no private key zip file is downloaded automatically when generating the certificate. Then, you’ll need to generate another new certificate. The certificate should be added to the headset once successfully deployed an app to it. If you previously created a wifi connection between the working computer and the device, and plan to use a cable to connect the device with the headset for app deployment, make sure to disconnect the wifi device on MLDB to prevent build errors.

Headset OS update

Without updating the device, you’ll probably run into an error when deploying from Unity :

[Error running MLDB install Building for Magic Leap]

Simply update to the latest OS will solve the issue. Whatsoever, the headset requires at least 65% battery life to run updates. If you’ve paid attention following the suggestion above, now you’ll have a nearly fully charged device that you could go ahead update the headset. Beware, the Magic Leap one requires you to click on those neatly designed update button not for once, not for twice, but three times or more/ depends on your working computer Lumin SDK version and Magic Leap One Lumin OS version. Each cycle of update/installation/reboot/controller update(yes you need to plug the controller to the power pack to update) only moves up one version at a time. For me, the SDK is 0.19.0, and I have to update OS to 0.94.0 in order to get Unity apps successfully deployed.

Now, have fun building cool stuff!
Interaction design is more than just user flows and clicks
By: Richard Yang, Richard.Ux
Tags: Technology, Startup, Design, Interaction Design, Product Design

Working memory

There is an extensive classification for all the different types of memory.

For our purposes as a designer, working memory (part of short-term memory) is the most relevant. The shortest type of memory is known as working memory, which typically only lasts a couple of seconds during a task.

In other words, our working memory is responsible for the information we can hold in our heads while we engage with other cognitive processes.

Miller’s Law states that the average person can only keep 5–11 items in their working memory at a time. The working memory required to complete a task within your product is proportional to the MIC burden you impose on your users.

Conversely, at no point should your task require the user to hold more than seven items in their working memory at any moment.

In rare scenarios where you require the user to hold more than 11 items in their memory, use “chunking” to reduce their mental burden. Chunking is when individual pieces of an information set are broken down and then grouped in a meaningful whole.

For example, we remember phone numbers as XXX-XXXX rather than XXXXXXX. It’s easier to remember the number in two chunks rather than a series of seven individual units.

Another factor related to consider related to attention and memory is “Hick’s Law.” The law states, “the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices.

The more choices there are, the longer it takes the user to make a decision.

Avoid overwhelming users with excessive choices, highlight the best option for them whenever possible. Break complex tasks into smaller steps, i.e., using progressive disclosure when appropriate.
Review of the Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF)
By: Harsh Mulchandani
Tags: Design Thinking, User Interface, User Experience, Design, Interaction Design

Why IxDF?

Wide Spectrum of Courses

They offer basic courses like Design Thinking, User Experience Beginners Guide, User Interface Design Patterns, etc. along with advanced courses like Brain Science in Interface Design, Psychology of Interaction Design, etc

Available courses

Quality of Content

All these courses are made up of video lectures as well as research articles. The speakers are well recognised in their field and do a great job by keeping all courses interactive and interesting.

They also provide a knowledge base of UX Design Articles with contributions from well recognised people in the design community like Don Norman, Alan Dix and Stuart Card.

UX Design Articles

Ease of Use

The content is well organised and the user experience of the website is immersive.

They have categorised the courses into Foundational, Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. Along with this, they have also provided a list of courses that should be taken up based on the career path that you want.

Industry Recognised Certificates

Each course has a set of questions which can either be multiple choice or open ended. Multiple choice questions are graded immediately by the system. Open Ended questions get graded by experts within 2 weeks.

If you get 70% marks in your course, you are eligible to a course certificate that can be shared on LinkedIn.

If you get 90%, then you are awarded a course certificate with a distinction of “Top 10% Course Taker”

If you get 100%, then you are awarded a course certificate with a distinction of “Best in Class”

These certificates are trusted by industry leaders such as IBM and Adobe

Become a member of Local Groups

There are various communities within IxDF that host regular meetups and discuss on their contributions as well as conduct interactive sessions for a better understanding of certain concepts. I am a part of the IxDF Mumbai Group and we are currently the 4th most active group on IxDF.
What are living objects and how should we interact with them
By: Michal Leschinsky
Tags: Robotics, Communication, Innovation, Interaction Design, Digital

Industrial robots first emerged in the 1950 and 1960, and were usually large, fenced machines people had to be cautious around. Over the years smaller, safer robots came to the front of the stage, leading the fourth industrial revolution, and those are designed to be collaborative robots (cobots). Collaborative robots are meant to operate in close proximity to people and in collaboration with them. Cobots are developed with the understanding that currently robots cannot complete a full elaborate task on their own, and the best and most efficient way to use them is to give the robots tasks they can do better than people, and give people tasks they can do better than robots- each with its advantages, collaborating and completing one another.

Joseph F. Engelberger, known as the father of robotics. image by Joyce Dopkeen, The New York Times.

As cobots and living objects come more and more into our lives we notice an interesting effect- our brain actually perceives these objects as living objects! Not in a rational way, but in an emotional way.

We’re very physical creatures and robots move around in our physical space in a way that feels autonomous to us. The fact is that we love to humanize anything from cats to pet rocks… robots with their physical movement really tap into some deep biological tendency to perceive life in these artifacts.

(Kate Darling, The Radical AI Podcast, 2020)

This tendency to anthropomorphize and develop feelings is an evolutionary given, and we as designers working on such objects and products cannot ignore the responsibility that puts on our shoulders.

Interaction designers must thoughtfully characterize the product they are working on, make sure they are making decisions that will benefit the users. Emotional attachment is not always what we would want to create. For example, emotional attachment to an industrial robot might be inappropriate. I remember a story from the mid two thousands about a marines unit which used a designated robot to clear landmines before they passed a terrain. One time this unit was ambushed and the robot was caught in the crossfire. Against protocol soldiers risked their lives to save the robot (which they named), stating it is part of the unit, and that they leave no man behind. This shows that sometimes a design should aim to not arouse empathetic feelings. When designers do a bad job with design and interaction design it is evident in the finished product. it harms the users and may even endanger lives. That is the reason I chose to dive into the field of interaction design and why I believe designers should be more involved in such development processes.
EasyDiet
By: Shayeri Das
Tags: App Development, Ux Blog, UX Design, Food, Interaction Design

Android based app that uses your BMI to suggest diets and delivers customised food packets daily at your doorstep.

Problem Statement

69% of working bachelors in Indian metropolitan cities face the problem of staple diet due to long working hours and irregular lifestyle.

Most of us are unaware of the food items required for a balanced diet and grocery shopping hassle is best avoided, be it online or offline. We rely on existing solutions such as keeping a cook, ordering food online, getting food from local hotels etc.

The limitations of these solutions are

Cook : Availability at home during cook’s working hours, grocery shopping, dealing with absenteeism, salary issues etc.

Local Hotels: Parcel picking hassle, unhealthy food etc.

Food Ordering Apps: Expensive, Dilemma of Choosing variety of food on a daily basis.

EasyDiet reduces the daily dilemma of choosing the correct food and uses our BMI to suggest the staple diet we require. It also takes into consideration the type of work we do, our preference of food and our purpose to maintain a balanced diet.

With EasyDiet, we have the option of adding upto three addresses, choose upto 2 time slots per meal delivery, opting out during weekends.

It also offers a trial period of 4 days before a 28 days subscription purchase. The payment during trial meals is deducted from digital wallets on delivery, however an advance purchase is required for the 28 days subscription. Lastly, it gives you the option to consult with a dietician if a diet is best suited for you.

Work in Progress: An additional nutrient tracker comparing the ideal and actual intake of ingredients for a particular diet.

The project in progress can be found at: EasyDiet Project on Behance
The Basics of Designing for Web
By: Juan Figueroa
Tags: User Interface, Ui Ux Design, Web Design, User Research, Interaction Design

Overall

When designing a web interface for your product or service consider the following:

Design to appeal to your specific audience (e.i.:an attractive physical appearance, an easy-to-use product, a functional and well performing interface, and to meet their needs); Prevent unnecessary annoyance, use smart defaults (e.i.: reduce clutter in text, options, and number of elements on the page); Present solutions, do not test the memory of your users (e.i.: provide recommended options from the beginning and do not make your users remember their choices); Small tasks and short information per task (e.i.: display information in a linear format with simple interactions so as not to confuse or overwhelm your users); Display adequate user interface elements to match a general style, functionality, and interaction (e.i.: have consistency in behavior, look, location, and function throughout your site); Update, maintain, and sustain your overall site (e.i.: continue to make changes to your site to improve on its usability, appeal, and content).

Designing a website is anything but easy. It takes dedication and a lot of testing. Slowly incorporate changes so as not to disrupt the flow for your current users. Have fun while your develop and design your site, but remain elegant in your aesthetic and and your composition.

…This is by no means a comprehensive guide, but rather a work in progress. If there is something you’d like me to add please let me know.

With ❤ by Juan at Product Pencil.
1st class of interaction design.
By: Rida Fathima
Tags: Interaction Design

So, honestly at first i was quite skeptical coming in to this class because these are some design disciplines that are not as well known as the conservative ones. Usually when you think of design, you think of fashion design, you think of interior design but you never think of interaction or communication design. this is not because of any limitations from its side but because of poor understanding of what the subject really is. A lot of times, you think of digital and you probably want to stay away from it but, what we often do not realise is that digital is the future whether you like it or not. Digitilization is a necessity to evolve. but, obviously all of this is not taught to us and we end up feeling inferior about such disciplines.

But, the course interaction design has completely changed my thoughts about it and i realised that it is much much more than what i thought it was, its a vast subject with heaps of knowledge and experience. a unique subject for the future to come.

The session began with a little interaction between the students and Dinesh Abiram sir, it was quite an interesting introduction as a lot was discovered about each other and their interests. at first sir sounded pretty intimidating but, after knowing more, he was a pretty chill and interesting teacher. What looked like a pretty easy conversation eventually transformed into a much deeper conversation where we discovered the first human interaction and how humans transformed from apes. from there it went on to the skin being the biggest sensor in the human body.

By this time, we had come to realise that there is much more to this than it seems and the discussion turned pretty interesting. we had to watch a few videos about google glasses and apple homepod and this was interesting because rather that talking about the products, the videos were more focused on the designing part of it and the experience.

after this, we learnt about the 10 principles of dieter rams about what a good design really is and what makes a good design innovation. these points are:-

a good design is innovative

makes a product useful

looks aesthetically pleasing

makes a product easily understandable

is unobstrusive

long lasting

every small detail is looked at

environmentally friendly

involves as little design as possible.

so all in all, it was a really fun session and i was looking forward to knowing more about the subject.
The Experience and the User Experience
By: Zoë Urand
Tags: User Experience, Interaction Design, Design

The Experience and the User Experience

This week’s topic addressed what it means to design with the user experience in mind. In the book “Subject to Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World: Adaptive Path on Design,” Merholz et al. (2008) discuss why experience is the product. They begin with the example of George Eastman and the original Kodak camera. Eastman revolutionized the way people interact with and experience photography. Instead of copying the camera’s predecessor, a complex apparatus with fragile photographic plates, he used roll film and decreased the amount of steps needed to take a photograph:

“Pull the Cord (to prepare the shutter); Turn the Key (to advance the film); and Press the Button (to release the shutter).” — Merholz et al., p. 5, 2008

Kodak Camera, 1888. Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company, Rochester, New York. George Eastman Museum, gift of Eastman Kodak Company. Source: https://www.eastman.org/camera-obscura-revolutionary-kodak

Perhaps he was unaware at the time, but his innovation with the Kodak camera would greatly affect how we design consumer products in general.

If we think about this example alongside the rise of technology, we can use it as a reminder to focus on what is important — the user experience. Merholz et al. argue that as our world became more digital, design began putting an emphasis on functionality and what features could be added to products; this was inexpensive and perceived by customers to add more value (p. 7). However, what we really need to consider when designing a product are these three elements: empathy (the product is intended for human use, and therefore requires an understanding of how the user will interact with it); problem solving; ideation and prototyping; and finding alternatives (whether this means creating something entirely new or altering an existing option) (p. 9–10). As Merholz et al. states:

“The key message here is not to approach the design problem assuming you’ll create a product, a service, and a system. Begin with the experience you want to design for, and then—and only then—identify the components that will deliver it.”— Merholz et al., p. 95, 2008

While this is a good place to start, I am curious as to how we can consider more than one user experience in our designs. As designers it is near impossible to propose a single solution that will suit all users; normally we address a target audience. In the paper “Communicating Intimacy One Bit at a Time” (2005), Kaye et al. describe a system they built for virtually communicating the intimacy of long distance couples. Though an intriguing study, I wonder how clicking on circle’s to display one’s presence to their partner, not only provides one, single user experience, but therefore may unconsciously fit users into this one kind of experience.

Virtual Intimate Object (VIO) in taskbar, showing colour changes over a twelve hour period (Kaye et al., p. 1, 2005)

Sources
So what’s up with interaction??
By: Keita Ikeda
Tags: Interaction, Interaction Design

Interaction has been seen as a quality novel and unique to new media art. A lot of the time, though, it feels more reactive than interactive. Sure, it might persuade us to give it a certain kind of input, but I still feel that the human has the power over it. In other words, I don’t feel that the machine is affecting us to the degree that we are affecting them. I’ve found some artworks and research where the machine literally moves the human though, and in this blog post, I want to talk a little bit about them, and what they do for the whole “interaction” paradigm.

One such piece is by the Japanese research group Digital Nature Group. Their system “Stimulated Percussions” assists the user in learning how to play percussive instruments by using electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) to flex arm and leg muscles in time with music (https://youtu.be/DzOUvWwjDo4). It helps the user learn complex rhythms “with their body”, without having to spend the time getting it wrong over and over. The system literally moves the user’s body, unlike many other artworks that purport to be interactive. Not only that, it poses fundamental questions about cognition, computation and the body. Here, the human isn’t the one that’s “doing the thinking”. Through electrical input, the user realises that learning does not just happen in the mind; we think and learn with our bodies. The machine contracts the user’s muscles involuntarily, making apparent the objecthood of the human body; a machine can make us move, just as much we can move them. In this way, through interaction and the change of power relation therein, this system problematises the perceived dualities between the body and the mind, and the human and the machine.

Another, perhaps more expressive and humorous, example, is “Face Visualizer” by Daito Manabe (https://youtu.be/YxdlYFCp5Ic). Also using EMS, this time attached to the artist’s facial muscles, “visualises” music by sending pulses in time with music. “Interactive” artworks that take the human face as an input is abundant, but this piece flips the equation. This time, your face is the output. Needless to say, it also performs similar kind of problematisations as the piece above.

Computers are not “just tools”. They make us as much as we make them, and push us to see the world, and our position therein, differently. New media art is a site in which this can be foregrounded; these pieces are condensed enactments of our interactions (and intra-actions) with the techno-scientific paradigm at large.

References

Daito Manabe. (2008). “Face Visualizer”, “Face Instrument”. http://www.daito.ws/en/work/smiles.html

Ayaka Ebisu, Satoshi Hashizume, Kenta Suzuki, Akira Ishii, Mose Sakashita, Yoichi Ochiai. (2016) “Building a Feedback Loop between Electrical Stimulation and Percussion Learning”. https://digitalnature.slis.tsukuba.ac.jp/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/StimulatedPercussions_preprint.pdf
What is it like to study with Interaction Design Foundation (IDF)?
By: Rafaela Chadud
Tags: Idf, Course, UX, Design Course, Interaction Design

Why study in IDF?

I know that a good education in the design field can be quite expensive and/or not accessible at all depending on the country you are living in. And that is the main point of Interaction Design Foundation (IDF), according to their own website, the goal is “to raise the level of global design education to an Ivy League standard, while at the same time reducing costs to as low as we can possibly take them”.

The courses available and the price for that education was something that attracted me right away to give it a try for IDF. I was looking to quality content to raise my skills in interaction design and I was interested in how it worked. And, after one year and 8 courses completed I can say I am really happy with the outcome.

8 courses completed in 2018, 7 of then with “Top 10% Course Taker” Distinction! Click here to check my profile at IDF!

When I subscribed to a membership, I was freshly graduated and working as a UI/UX Designer for a startup. Even working in the field, I felt the need for more knowledge and some certifications to improve my work. I was already a designer and familiar with a lot of terms and courses, and it was nice to see the course catalogue was not only focused in beginners, but they offer intermediate and advanced courses as well, which is a plus.

This is just some courses IDF offers.

How do the courses work?

Overall the content in the courses are good. They are curated by UX Professionals using reference materials within the area. Expect to read concepts from “The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman and a lot of material from NN Group (the fathers of user experience design). The lessons also try to balance text and video content, so your brain can learn in different ways.

The experience of learning is also quite fun! They gamified the system, and you can see your progress throughout the course and how far are you from the minimum score to get a certificate. In addition, they send you some emails reminding you to start that course you left behind for some reason.

You earn the points and keep your progress bar moving by completing and scoring the exercises. The exercises are usually offered in the end of each lesson, and it can be either multiple choice or open ended questions, and they give you the points to earn your certificate in the end of the course.

Example of how the questions are presented in the end of each lesson

The good thing about having open ended questions is that you can practice some UX Sketches besides just writing texts. And this open ended answers will be reviewed by an instructor, so you can actually get real feedback on your work.
Fish Identification App — WhatFish UK. Conducting user research to identify usability issues with the current app — applying User Centered Design process.
By: Agata J
Tags: Information Architecture, User Experience, Case Study, UX, Interaction Design

Products need iteration on a regular basis to be able to meet changing user needs and meet business goals. After careful competitor analysis it was identified:

— Competitors are utilising different business model: in-app purchases. Such business model has got the advantage of attracting and keeping the user.

— Majority of the apps available on the market have similar search patterns to WhatFish UK app: search by colour, shape, common or scientific name.

— Only one app (FishVerify) applies smart image recognition as a search pattern. However, the fish is not being identified accuratley.

— Users do not want to create accounts; they need clear information provided on the app services (paid and free) upfront; quick fish identification method is needed.

— Interaction design is not always clear

USER RESEARCH

QUAN metohd

A survey was designed to capture the data about user types. The data captured included 20 participants. The sources I used to collect data: reddit, online communities.

QUAL method

3 individual interviews were conducted to gather in-depth targeted information and learn about user behaviour.

To reflect the data gathered from both methods I separated user types and prioritised their needs:

Separating user types and prioritising their needs helps in constructing personas.

Personas are a vital part in User Centered Design process. I created personas after the user research was conducted to help identify and empathise with users. Personas play key role during different UCD process stages.
Week 2-How to write a survey?
Tags: Healthcare Design, UX Research, Asthma, Aini, Interaction Design

As the healthcare project progress, I started to doubt my interview questions.

Whether if they are hitting the right direction or just some generic questions?

Here I am reading how others write theirs:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/gathering-demographic-information-from-surveys/

IDEO Research, lots of good survey examples

https://www.facebook.com/IDEOresearch/

Started with the general question such as name, age, gender (more than just 2 options). Personal healthcare habit, family Asthma history, mental health (their attitude toward having an Asthma), opinion on the inhaler design, knowledge about the medicine they are taking, the most recent time they had Asthma attack…

My goal is trying to understand how serious their Asthma is, an overall picture of everything and some personal preferences they have with the medicine. So far, I am slightly overwhelmed by these raw data and learning a lot about it.

I had a recap with the design advisor and the engineer, look up how other competitors do their products, and currently scheduling the meeting with a nurse from the local hospital.

Some key insights I had so far:

-It is annoying for Asthmatic to carry around the inhaler

-Many people don’t have the habit of keep tracking with Asthma

-What does the doctor want to know and wish their patients do?

-What do Asthmatic want?

-There are different types of Medicine to use in a different situation, range from weak to strong. Do all asthmatic know the differences?

More and more question pop in my mind… let’s see how my meeting goes with the nurse.
User Experience and its importance
By: Abhishek Paradkar
Tags: User Experience, User Centered Design, User Experience Design, Interaction Design

The focus of user experience is simple — to make our users feel satisfied with the effectiveness of the product or service they are using. This might be making them feel more productive, more motivated, happier, efficient, confident, or any other specific feeling that they may associate the product or service based on its category and the problems that it aims to solve.

The majority of the time, the term user experience is defined within the context of technology. It may be in terms of building an electronic product, an online web-based service, or a desktop or mobile application built to serve a specific purpose. That is what I personally associate user experience with, at least. The consequences of focusing on delivering a good user experience though, are far-reaching.

When you come to think of a product or a service from the perspective of users, you also must take into account their tendencies to judge a product and the people behind it, based on how they perceive the product. This can have a lasting impact on the product itself, sure, but also the brand, the company, and the developers behind the product. This could prove to be a standard to maintain, beyond just delivering a product.

In order to really nail the user experience, then, it is key to understand the users and empathize with them. The term ‘user-centered design’ is often used when trying to build a user experience. It puts the user at the heart of the product/service, understands the problems that the users are facing, tries to build the solutions to solve those problems while at the same time thinking of ways to do so without major pitfalls for the users by thinking in a prophylactic manner.

The takeaway

The field of user experience is interdisciplinary. It cannot be classified simply into graphic designing, psychology, or research, but rather it must be considered as a field that works in tandem with these areas of expertise to understand the users better.

This is what I have learnt from my venture of understanding user experience, its importance and essential aspects of what makes or breaks the user experience for people.