
đź‘‹ Oi, mga repapips, Brian Dys here! I love music, photography, and creative stuff like UX design and art. This is a place where I collect my thoughts and works. Apart all these, I’m Jaycelle’s better half and Bryce’s dad. 🥰
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin
Is this humility or hubris? Do we place too little value in human intelligence — or do we overrate it, assuming we are so smart that we can create things smarter still?
Kashmir Hill and Jeremy White
If we define productive as a way of optimizing the outcome of you spending resources on something, then I think it’s more so the complete productivity obsession across the board of your life.
Henrik Werdelin
The design team at PayMaya had the opportunity to have a two-day workshop with Elizabeth Baylor—a senior UX researcher at Google.
Day 1 topics covered the following:
We assume that others think like we do but that is only an assumptions. Here is where research comes in handy—to test our assumptions.
Two keywords in UX: effective and delightful. People’s experiences in using a product or service must be effective (doesn’t waste time while achieving their goals) and delightful (makes them feel good while doing it).
In UX Research, the effectiveness and delightfulness of solutions must be backed by insights and data. Success metrics is measured.
1. Discover What’s the problem? | 2. Explore Conceptualize on the possible solutions |
4. Iterate Polish the solution | 3. Design Implement solution based on a concept that works |
When you’ve invested time in discovery and exploration and the solutions failed during implementation, it is easier to look into the implementation phase for improvements rather than attributing the failure due to a bad concept.
During the design and iteration phase, you’re already testing for usability and polishing the solution.
During the Discovery and Exploration phases, it is better to test for usefulness, then during the Design and Iteration, the usefulness and usability. Test them separately in order to easily attribute where the problem lies
1. Discover Usefulness | 2. Explore Usefulness |
4. Iterate Usefulness and usability | 3. Design Usefulness and usability |
Imagine an ice cream dropped and melting on the group—generally inedible and it’s a problem when the goal is ice cream consumption.
Can users successfully reach their goals while using the product or service?
Six to eight users (anyone) could be recruited to test the product—enough to uncover 85% of usability problems.
Imagine your favorite ice cream flavor—each person has his/her own. Flavor, in this example, is a preference.
In testing for usefulness, sampling matters. Recruit who’s in scope and know who’s out of scope. Identify your primary and secondary target users.
Test your assumptions.
Put pain points to a test.
Avoid self-centered design.
You are not the user.
Your solution is only as good as your understanding of the problem.
Research’s effectiveness lies in the right sample and the right method.
The last week of November was Jaycelle’s birthday week so we were focused on preparations and celebrations. I didn’t really get to read a lot of stuff this week (in fact, I only got one).
Yes, we need to go into communities. But we should be looking to find the creative people in those communities who are already addressing their problems. People who live in the community don’t need anthropologists and design researchers to figure out their needs. They know the problems and they often have creative ideas. Moreover, they present practical solutions because they understand the culture, the capabilities, and the resources of the community.
Don Norman
Woke up early morn scampering to find all the knickknacks that once filled up my backpack. I emptied it since March early this year and retired it into a forgotten corner of the house. The quarantine’s end wasn’t in sight, after all. All the things that I think I might need when in the office were all lined up on my desk — they are the following:
The bag? Yes, it’s nowhere to be found. I was about to check a mountain of luggage one by one and thankfully, Jaycelle was half-awake to tell me that it might be in a box full of bags. There it was, my old army green friend.