Week 5
A framework to quantify user journeys, learning how to converse better and thoughts about a gap in design education.
What an incredibly fulfilling week. Went on two treks, messed around with user-controlled beziers and learnt quite a bit.
[Learnings] Using the Psych framework to quantify User Journey Maps
A common tool in the world of UX design is the User Journey Map.
These often robotic representations of a human being using a particular product are used across the industry to map out systems, services or processes. Andrew Chen expands upon a psychology framework titled The Psych Framework, which essentially quantifies a user journey.
User energy units range from 0-100. As Andrew explains, “a user at 100 Psych is maximally committed to their current experience, does not need further motivation, and will overcome most challenges.”
As one progresses through the journey, they either lose or gain Psych points based on different usability/functional/delight factors within the product.
Quantifying an abstract representation of a process could be especially helpful when attempting to select which sectors to improve in a user journey. Although this requires one to assume Psych points won and lost during a step, it could be helpful in certain scenarios for communication and comparison.
[Thoughts] Givers and Takers in conversations
In Adam Mastoianni’s article, Good conversations have lots of doorknobs, Adam describes the involved as either givers or takers. He writes, “Givers think that conversations unfold as a series of invitations; takers think conversations unfold as a series of declarations. When giver meets giver or taker meets taker, all is well. When giver meets taker, however, giver gives, taker takes, and giver gets resentful (“Why won’t he ask me a single question?”) while taker has a lovely time (“She must really think I’m interesting!”) or gets annoyed (“My job is so boring, why does she keep asking me about it?”).”
It was rather interesting to think about how people involved in a conversation fall in either of the two categories. Recognising this early on can be quite helpful, especially in situations where you have to be the one to initiate conversation (for example, during conversational interviews).
If you correctly identify a giver and facilitate the conversation intelligently, you can extract a lot more than what you had originally planned for. Adam goes on to elaborate more on such tools (such as affordances in conversation) that could help in the facilitation of better conversation, a skill integral to the life of a designer.
[Projects] So You Need A Typeface
Found an extremely cool flowchart designed by Julian Hansen to help pick the right typeface for a project.
I’m getting increasingly interested in information design.
[Thoughts] Why are we not being taught to identify the right problems?
I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time now.
Design education is so focused on the solution space and little time is spent on making sure that students learn to identify the correct problems. Take any college project for example. Problem identifying is allocated about 10-20% of the overall time and the rest is spent on ideation and development of the idea.
Every single project emphasises the solution space, without ever questioning if students know how to identify the correct problems to solve for. Take the Behaviour Iceberg model, for example.
Why wasn’t I ever introduced to this during my education? Why didn’t we ever use divergent thinking for problem statements? So often, students freeze on the first problem they encounter without ever getting to the root of it. The 5-Whys matrix, iterative problem statement development, identifying underlying behaviour and other such tools are so underused in a design education space.
While I understand the grander importance of the solution space, I believe it is a design institution’s responsibility to also train a student to identify the correct problems and to explore the problem space first, before moving on to the solution space.
I would even go on to propose a double diamond model only for problem framing, taught in a one-week workshop that ends with possible intervention areas. No sticky notes containing undercooked ideas, but learning to arrive at a well-defined problem statement.
[Project] The 36 questions that lead to love
This questionnaire consisting of 36 questions, first developed by psychologists Arthur Aron and Elaine Aron in the 1990s, is designed to develop an intimate connection between two strangers simply by asking each other a series of increasingly personal questions.
What I found interesting is how we tend to overcomplicate human relationships, while intimate ones can simply be forged in spaces of vulnerable communication.
[Project] Generative Bandhani patterns by Tripti Shah
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending CC Sante: an online community meetup for creative coders in India hosted by Paper Crane Labs. At the meetup, Tripti Shah presented her project, titled Bandhani, where she essentially created a generative tile based on an Indian tie-dye textile decoration.
She has three sets of variables that lead to a number of possible permutations, leading to a seemingly infinite repository of patterns.
The concept of fxhash, which she used to sell her NFTs, is intriguing as well. It is an open platform to generate NFTs, as you upload lines of code which result in permutations of the sellable outcome.
However, the whole concept of NFTs still remains an ethical dilemma for me.
[Resource] FontShare – Indian Type Foundry
FontShare is a free fonts service launched by the Indian Type Foundry and has quite a number of well-designed typefaces.