UX Experience . UX Design

I really love that the User Experience for the ux design website of the world is so 00's. The website finished in 2014, shame it isnt around any longer...

Wolfsburg, get some new bus ads

Dear Wolfsburg, You are good at many things, but bus 201, really? HarDly BuSinesS ClasS. I stared at this, trying to decipher whether this was a joke... #teenagerphotoshop

Thailand Train Users

Dear Bangkok, Thailand, I love how you you help your users navigate their train journeys by simply giving exit numbers for their train stations. Sydney, when will our user experience be this seamless. Francie.

Dear Hong Kong

Hong Kong, I'll miss you, but oops. Seems like you forgot the home button. Better luck next time, Francie.

Prototyping Apps

Last August I was able to knab a position as a Service Design Intern in one of the largest Automotive makers in the world, and for the past year now, I have been working alongside 5 other team mates from various backgrounds; designers, strategists, business managers.

With a bachelor in Product design, I have been able to get the grounding for materials, how to build products and a general technical understanding of the world of things.

In my master I learnt how to sell products; the real world, beyond the product itself.

Throughout my time as a designer, I have been constantly flicking between the Adobe Suite; Illustrator, Photoshop and Indesign as concrete blocks for many projects. Yet now, I want to better understand users, consumers, the people that use products. As we get global, I am changing with the times, and at work, I have been able to try out prototype apps. Lately, I have been trying out Sketch 3, Pop and Invision.

I have been documenting some of the experiences I have been having with services and products, and will be posting them up, here soon. Some frustrating, some, a bit more enthusiastic.

2015: going raw

It is the 23rd of December, and I am well settled in Dublin for Christmas. I am visiting a good friend and life companion C. She lives in Dublin, and I have been lucky enough to also drop in on other friends whilst I have been here.

Whilst I have been here, it is coming up to the new year, and I am about to reassess my life. I want a big change, and I think it is about time. The past few months have been upside down for me; spiritually I feel like I have found clarity on what my life is about which has lead me to change how I view relationships. I have also found a full time job, which is an absolute life changer and gives me stability for a longer short-time period.

I want to give myself a challenge and am going to try and go raw for a year.

Right now, I am an unstable vegetarian. I told myself I would eat meat on my birthday, and christmas, but during 'special occasions' I tend to splurge meaning I break my routine.

This means that as I prepare for a year of going raw, I need to put some restrictions in place. What will I allow myself to eat, and not eat, will I allow myself to break my diet/lifestyle and if so, when. How will I go about telling people.  When I travel or eat at someone's house, will I allow myself to eat meat/eggs/cheese/warm?

Complications Of course there will be complications when starting a diet like this. I am thinking mostly social, which will be considerable seeing that I eat with friends and housemates every day of the week. I think I should make some exceptions, but for the first two months, I am going to go all out, and be completely Raw, and then reassess after two months.

I think the first two will be the hardest, partly because it will be the coldest months of the year, and I will crave warm foods.

Right now, I am travelling a trip around Asia, and I am wanting to save up money for the trip. For the first three months of the year, the money I save from food, I will put towards the trip.

I have 8 days until I begin my new lifestyle, and I am going to slowly wean myself off meat and warm foods during this time. I will also think about what I am going to eat, and my restrictions list. I find that I tend to break my lifestyles when I go on holidays and travel, so this is going to be the most difficult.

I also absolutely love food, especially warm food. During my time in the Netherlands, and even Germany, I couldn't get over my friends only eating one warm meal a day. I told myself that they were crazy, and if I could, I would eat warm all the time!

At worst, it is only a year. I am serious about this, and 365 days isn't really that much.

Why on earth am I doing this?

Health
As I reach 25, I have come to the same conclusion as those older and wiser than me. A friend who is at the peak in his 30's recently told me he has to really watch what he eats these days. I chuckled, but just a few weeks later, I realise that I have been blessed with a body that functions well, and I should try and keep it that way! I haven't treated it wonderfully the past few years, but hopefully I will be getting it back on track next year. My older brother has also gone Vegan for health issues too, and I figure and experimenting with my body like this, can't be any worse than anything else I have done to it previously, hardly! I have shoved so much junk into my body, that eating fruits and vegetables from God's green earth can hardly be worse than anything else I have tried.

Sustainability
Always included in my bodily experiments, and this is no different. I'll also try and eat local when I can. I figure that it won't be too expensive seeing as I won't be buying a lot of what I buy at the moment. Trying to decrease my footprint where I can is part of why I have been a vegetarian. Trying to shrink my environmental impact. If you want to know more, you can send me an email.

Challenge
I need a challenge, and sure is a crazy one.

Getting in tune with my body
I want to see how my body reacts; my mind, emotions, intellectual productivity, sense of energy... I have been told by friends that they can tell when their body needs something. I haven't felt that, but I hope that by doing this, my body will begin to discover what it needs more naturally.

Weight
After giving up competitive rowing and moving to Germany, starting a 9-5 job, I can already see the effects on my body. Sitting at a desk all day surely is far from ideal. I want to minimise the effects of sitting idle all day, and do this before my body gets into the habit of work. I want my body to register raw with work, as I am just about to start work, and right now my body is starting to take note of the yearly rhythms as it adapts to working life.

More updates to come, I'll see how this turns out!

BEIJING

I have been wanting to write this post since I first arrived in Beijing, so that I could get my true first thoughts down on paper before they had changed too much.

Seven years ago, I travelled through China with a family friend and her family. We were in China for 3 weeks, and were shepherded through all the major tourist attractions that China has to offer, including many in Beijing. In saying this, I didn’t get to appreciate many non-touristy parts of Chinese life, and went away feeling like most 15 year olds would after a trip to China. Seven years later, when conversations of China come up, all that this conjures up in my mind, is memories of dense populations, a lack of proper hygiene, and the air pollution that fills the sky at any time of day.

Therefore when a good friend suggested that I come visit, I must admit that I have been somewhat hesitant to come back. However her persistence in the matter has paid off, and I arrived in Beijing approximately 24 hours ago and plan to stay for approximately 4 days before heading back home to Delft.

Passing by as a stopover on my way home, I have spent the last two weeks in Japan. Now Japan is a decidedly civilised community and if I were to put them on a scale of international etiquette and manners, they would be scoring somewhere in the high 9s, close to a 10. On entering a restaurant you will be undoubtedly be greeted with the typical Irasshaimase! (Welcome!), and bow when you leave. People of every social class wear a suit to work, from businessmen, to chefs, to builders. Their ability to hold their poise when in a sticky situation is incredible, and I take my hat off to the Japanese for their genuine hospitality skills into their country.

Leaving Japan, and entering China was a large culture shock for my body, as I left a place that follows rules as part of their daily life; politeness can go so far as to apologise before even bumping into someone, to a country where rules just don’t exist.

Arriving in Beijing was hard. I will admit it. The nature of China’s corruption can be seen everywhere, where people do as they please on a daily basis. My first experiences began in the airport, where we were lead from one booth to another as we had lost our bags at the airport. From here, we had to enter the baggage carrousels through the exit (which isn’t even possible in Australia), and collect our bags from an alternative meeting point.

I don’t want to complain about China, far from it, and it may just be the cultural shock I was experiencing at the time, however the cultural differences were difficult to deal with at first. The loud nature of the Chinese compared to that of the Japanese was admittedly challenging at first.

I was on the verge of tears upon meeting my friend, and I will ashamedly admit that the first words I muttered to her were ‘I hate Beijing’. The chaos and disorganised nature of the city, coupled with the air pollution were the biggest welcoming mat, however after 24 hours, I am starting to think that Beijing is growing on me.

I have only met ridiculously ambitious and interesting people in this city, full of stories, and who love to chat. I feel like they are constantly on the move, thinking, living.

Coming from Chinese heritage, I am always embarrassed to admit that I don’t actually speak Chinese, and my Chinese cooking skills are far from perfect. However, on arriving here, I am met by dozens of expats who are fluent in the Mandarin language, and who can (I am scared to ask) probably cook much better than me. I realise how little I know about my heritage, and how much the Chinese culture has to offer.

Not only culturally, but as a country currently developing faster than any other, there is always so much room to develop business ideas and create side projects, with resources available at the touch of your fingerprints. Not here even one day, I feel as though there is an entrepreneurial spirit within the city that is really drawing me in.

I ask myself where I want to be in the future, and I am hesitant to type this down, but I would love to come and live in Beijing, study Mandarin, and find a job here after I graduate.