Category Archives: translation

UX, we have a problem { or a few }

uxskimo

 

there’s the cute little UX eskimo — so innocent and cute, standing in his little Inuit happiness at the tip of the iceberg

the iceberg represents the UX process and our deliverables in this rather well-known and beautifully illustrated depiction of all those things that user experience actually is — and the eskimo is your happy tour guide to the iceberg, our little Virgil just waiting to show us around the wonderful processes and deliverables in our vector-drawn Divine Comedy of UX

go download the poster from PAZ — its something nice to print out and hang on your fridge

now psychoanalyze the poster for a few minutes here with me, because unfortunately i think that the informative nature of the this design piece is equally balanced by an unintended, expressive reflection that a many user-centered design professionals can relate to on myriad levels

here’s my high-level interpretation:

we stand alone at the top of a mountain of ice that’s floating in dangerous, deadly-cold waters

we know what we’re talking about, we can see The Big Picture from the vantage point we’re standing at, and this is a fantastic place to be in 2014 — we can feel like leaders in our profession, we hold a unique vision, a perspective that includes the intersection of design, people, technology, business and this mysterious force called experience, the thing that rules them all, right?

but i wonder as i examine this poster,
where are the other little eskimos?

where are the good people on the business side? where are the cSuite and product and project managers? where are the developers? and where are all the other amazing professionals that we constantly engage with and collaborate with on a daily basis to create an optimal, immersive and delightful experience?

we don’t do it alone

even if it oftentimes feels that way, and even if the setup just happens to put us in this solo spot

we can’t do it alone

but there we are — little eskimos that somehow need to keep the feeling of UX warm and friendly and cute, even amidst the most bitter, freezing elements of this strange wintry environment

but this is the myth — and its actually both the myth and the actual reality of the business on SO many occasions because most businesses still do not understand what we do in UX beyond the buzz of we need some UX to make this better

they’re still expecting a person to wave the magic wizardly wand to sprinkle that glittery UX dust on the original missed opportunities from Phase 1 not quite realizing that its not a person or the people of UX you need to invest in — its both the people and the processes they bring to the business table that need your trust, your empowerment and your investment

i’ve worked in the realm of interaction and UX now for 2 decades and i am flabbergasted at how many times the process falls to shit because the UX Team is not given the power and trust to contribute both at a reasonable pace and at a necessary level of leaderly quality in our daily collaborations

when i bring my automobile to the shop to get it fixed, per esempio, i might have a conversation with the mechanic to understand her/his diagnostic analysis of the situation and to understand the cost and consequences of my repairs, but my own sense of subjectivity never really enters the equation because i have a relationship with the expert professionals that are helping me get back on the road in a safe and reasonable manner

in almost the same scenario in the world of experience design, however, the expertise of the professional is almost always questioned, challenged and compromised — defend the quality and integrity of the design as best as you must, there is rarely the occasion that UX is given even a good enough sense of respect and trust to simply move forward with the plans as envisioned by the designer — there is always something to challenge the design rationale, the feasibility of the development work, the cost and scope of the design recommendations { such a wimpy-ass word, too, if you ask me, these recommendations }, even the usability, research and other current, established methodological practices all seem to get some sense of snarl-lipped scrutiny from the business forces surrounding UX

the odds are still against us

and the challenge and territory of experience design as a professional practice are still a much larger iceberg we’re touring, my friends and colleagues — the challenge for UX in 2014 and moving forward is formidable — formidable but possible — but it entails SO much more than what is so cutely included in this poster toy depiction of User Centred Design { intentional misspelling, i assume? — not that i’m opposed to any concrete poetics inspired by e.e. cummings and others, of course } — and the challenges are far more about: developing our soft skills; improving our abilities to command the other languages we need to speak with the entire milleau of vast and diverse collaborative teams; and optimizing the way we navigate and guide { or a stronger word, the one i prefer, would be lead } the over-politicized, internal { and external } corporate ecosystems that our processes and personas need to function within

we still have a lot to keep working on

we need to flip the diagrammatics, these visuals that both paint the expressive picture of our work while also simultaneously informing ourselves and others about what our industry is all about

firstly, we should always move up, not down, into the process — we need a different metaphor, one where we wouldn’t end up under water in the frigid Arctic Ocean as a consequence of flipping the paradigm — but first and foremost, progress is almost universally expressed through upward movement, unlike what we see with our friendly UX eskimo and iceberg { a very intriguing Freudian Slip, though, to keep in mind when you start to look at the poster by what the industry must feel like to the poster artist }

and secondly, we need more people, eskimos and others, as the leaders and guides to the process

UX is not a solo endeavor — it should not even remotely ever be considered the efforts and fruits for the hands of an individual contributor

and there’s obviously so much more beyond this poster to be worked on, but how we visualize who we are and what we do matters so much — we still have a perception challenge for UX — we need to keep working on it together

some definitions to consider

ocean

i look back lately — at my previous research and active design work at Dynamic Media Institute

i am re-opening my book — my design thesis book, that is — to once again take a look inside my veryOwn openContainer, and my intention to continue my investigative research into laughter, cyberSurrealism and the human experience swells and motivates me with a newfound retrospective clarity that i just frankly wasn’t ready to tackle back then

as i delve deeper into the investigation — an investigation that brings me to new areas of dangerous confrontation and heightened, intense self-awareness — i ready myself and my future audience of readers and participants with these 3 crucial definitions stolen from — or, uhm — cited from the Wikipdedia as core concepts for your consideration — important terms of reference regarding the underlying purpose and nature of my work

 

awareness
Awareness is the state or ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects, or sensory patterns. In this level of consciousness, sense data can be confirmed by an observer without necessarily implying understanding. More broadly, it is the state or quality of being aware of something. In biological psychology, awareness is defined as a human’s or an animal’s perception andcognitive reaction to a condition or event.
Read more about Awareness on the Wikipedia

consciousness
Consciousness is the quality or state of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.[1][2] It has been defined as: sentience,awarenesssubjectivity, the ability to experience or to feelwakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind.[3] Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe that there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is.[4] As Max Velmans and Susan Schneider wrote in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness: “Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives.”[5]
Read more about Consciousness on the Wikipedia

mindfulness
Mindfulness is “the intentional, accepting and non-judgmental focus of one’s attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment”,[1]which can be trained by meditational practices[1] derived from Buddhist anapanasati.[2]

The term “mindfulness” is derived from the Pali-term sati,[3] “mindfulness”, which is an essential element of Buddhist practice, including vipassanasatipaṭṭhāna and anapanasati.

Mindfulness practice is being employed in psychology to alleviate a variety of mental and physical conditions, including obsessive-compulsive disorderanxiety, and in the prevention of relapse in depression and drug addiction.[4] It has gained worldwide popularity as a distinctive method to handle emotions.
Read more about Mindfulness on the Wikipedia

 

All preceding definitions from this blogPost came from the infamous Wikipedia out there on the webz. Go check it out { as if you’ve never heard of it, right? } and don’t forget to occasionally donate a bit to keep the project funded and smoothly movin’ along — we all learn soOOoOoo much from our little Wikipedia that could now, don’t we?

 

wikipedia1

 

shazbot

robinWilliams

now you are free, my friend, finally free — and you are with all of us, in all of our hearts and thoughts and in the energy that feels good and alive and light and happy

thank you

you gave us so much

a self-reflective note { to myself }

enjoyCapitalism

my mind constantly explores personal concepts and beliefs in an automatic way that i sometimes can’t control { i don’t dare try to control these streams of subConscia — strange inner enigmas unravel, drift, separate and then come back together again all on their own at times, which i find extremely invaluable } — little conflicts between my interior and the world we live in, all of the veritable psychodynamics that seem to invisibly sizzle in a constant ebb and flow between the conscious and the subconscious, poetically heal themselves or sometimes split into smaller branching tributaries that continue on like a roaring rivertide

sometimes the deepest underbelly thread of  my thoughts stream up into my surface consciousness on a short jaunt to the Men’s Room at the office or while strolling over into the kitchen

today was a typical day

i was thinking about Capitalism again

yup, you got it — the ‘C’ word ;]

one of the many ‘isms‘ i seem to put out there in a metaphysical ring to wrestle out the strengths and weaknesses of these philosophies around culture and governance, civilization and society

i thought something along the lines of:

even though our Democracy-based societal backdrop here in The United States overwhelmingly bows down in a subservient, unholy way to the financial Darwinism of our Capitalistic, { originally } unintentional reliance on a pure economic hierarchical sense of sovereign oligarchy — i expect people to actually act a LOT better than that

you know? i’d never really clearly articulated it like that before i guess

i felt a little happier about it — about these kind of horrifically unfair societal inequalities, injustices and broken promises that seem to just continually fall under attack from certain ‘rogue’ forces out there

i think just clearing up my expectations about the system and people and behavior i could separate myself and my own beliefs and feelings about the unfortunate purely-Capitalistic sway of our governing, rotten ‘rules of play’ to at least subtly stumble upon the realization that maybe i’ve been practicing a better way to be as a human being and as a citizen of this country { and hopefully the world }

this conceptual distancing and the solidification around my personal expectations for myself, my family and my friends and colleagues sharpens my focus a bit and helps me understand that i might just be alright after all

flaginShadow

Why babies cry in their native tongue

originally written and posted on November 8th, 2009 

This is a bit of a rePosting … the original post is here on AllTop, but also included here below …

Baby-CryingFlickr

Just days after birth, babies are much too young to control their vocal cords or the muscles that shape the mouth to make specific sounds. But that doesn’t stop them from communicating in their mother tongue, new research suggests.

The study monitored thirty French and German newborns, and noted distinct differences between the cries of the two tiny groups. The wails mimicked the patterns, rhythms and intensity of their native language. Scientists believe fetuses start to learn the melody of ambient language during the third trimester in the womb. By imitating what they hear, they endear themselves to their mothers.

Plenty more on babies.

And as part of my running commentary and observations about translation and interpretation … I added in the following bloggish commentarium :

i also believe that laughter is something that can reveal mother tongue … we can modify our behaviors, study the specific dialect of varied regions of the word, but when we laugh, when we cry, when we express some intense emotion ( such as anger or grief ) we return to an area of honesty … we are brought back to the place where we grew up, to that area where we first learned our own voice + the voice of our own people

are there other expressions of human emotion that help bring us back to our ‘real’ selves?

for me, its laughter

my laughter, as much as i might try to disguise it, comes with the original accent of my mother tongue … North Shore, Massachusetts ( well, actually i’m originally from Watertown )

i also notice that i am almost good at correctly pronouncing all of my Rs … that is, until i get totally wound up in some sort of anger about something … mostly on the road, perhaps … but i completely lose my Rs and return from whence i came ( language-skills-wise, that is ) when i am totally frustrated and wanna knock somebody’s lights out

not that i speak The Queen’s proper English by any means

but i am keenly aware of what Revere sounds like, what Cambridge tries to sound like, that horrible stigma we have of either sounding like we’re The Jordan’s guys or a Kennedy ( bad actors seem to study the Kennedys to master their New England accent … very bad idea … only the Kennedys talk like that … super annoying to hear top notch talent butchering our accent, just completely missing the bus altogether )

where are you from? is your accent different than you hear it from your childhood days? what aurally returns your voice to that voice of origin? how can we map voice? the delta in voice? inflection? dialect? accent? etcetera?