Design in context: reflections from UX New Zealand conference 2019
By: Amanda Conlon
Tags: User Experience, Culture, Design, Startup, Product Design

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

I recently attended the UX New Zealand Conference and left each day feeling inspired and excited by the projects, initiatives and ideas each speaker presented. As diverse as the talks were, I found many were linked by the common thread of context. Designers are translating the context that already exists into the created context of products and services, so having a deep understanding of people, culture, history and abilities helps individuals transition easily between these two worlds. Here are a few highlights from a selection of talks at UXNZ that exemplify the role of context in design.

Culture in context

I am constantly inspired by the efforts made in New Zealand to improve how systems and services are designed for the indigenous Māori people. There is still work to be done and nothing can undo all the wrongs of the past but it is encouraging to see genuine attempts to make improvements. Cultural competency and understanding context is essential to engage in ways that resonate with Māori and people of any culture so we can begin to reduce inequality. For Māori, relationships are key and must be created and maintained before they are drawn upon. When designers build trusting relationships it brings about deeper conversations and better stories, allowing the designs to be more relevant and more successful. Mana (a person/place/thing’s spirit, power or essence) is an essential concept and all designs and interactions should be in an effort to enhance mana or Manaakitanga. This should involve not only building ongoing relationships but also giving back when people share their stories and ensuring they see the results of the research, services or products. These principles not only help Māori but can be applied to design in general, they are simply good principles for all design endeavors.

“What is your cup of tea budget?”

Cara Kleid also found that relationships and understanding context were the keys to success in her project to create mobile financial services for the rural poor in Uganda. Dropping all assumptions and having flexibility and an open mind in a completely foreign environment was crucial. Cara found it was necessary to do research about the people and the place before even beginning design research to really understand the culture so she could design studies for the correct context. This meant understanding most people in Kampala, Uganda use a small Nokia phone or may only own a sim card, understanding the reasons most people don’t currently use banks and the barriers to banking services. My favorite example was Cara attempting to discover what items people spend money on by having participants place fake money on photo cards of things like a chicken, cow or house. She noticed that a participant didn’t put money on the cow image even though there was a cow clearly visible in the participant’s backyard, when questioned his response was, that is a European cow, I have a brown Ugandan cow.

Understanding users is more than just understanding what products will be useful but actually understanding them as individuals and as a culture and letting this lead everything from what products will be useful to what images are used and product tone is chosen.