My first story is about Leonardo Da Vinci. The city starts and continues with Da Vinci. Born in a tiny place outside Florence (where his last name is from), and technically abandoned by his parents, presumed, by many authors, as seeking their validation throughout his life. It’s fair to say though, looking at everything he has left behind (paintings, writings, inventions) he’s the closest we’ve got to an alien appearing within historic context much ahead of his time, in fact, beyond the conventional notion of time.

Here’s what you may already know:

• He was a vegetarian. Imagine that: midst 15th century, when Florence, as well as the rest of the world, was very much riddled with carnivores. By his admission, he loved animals too much to eat them.
• He came up with the first prototypes for a huge part of the technological advancements we know today. The parachute. The helicopter. The diving suit. The printing press enhancements. The self-holding bridge. The endless amount of structures and mechanisms, which, at the heart of the majority of them is a thing as simple as a wooden gear and underlying laws of physics no one had captured well before him.
• He’s the first one who realised that the heart is a muscle. His extensive studies of the human body progressed not only human portrayal within art but within medicine.

Here’s what may be interesting for you to learn, as a designer:

• He was a great advocate of experiments. As contemporaries note, Da Vinci was “not willing to admit himself as an adept of the mainstream knowledge of the time”— in art, in biology, in architecture — he kept absorbing, like a sponge, everything he saw and heard. As many know, he had a habit of writing in a “mirror way” — starting at the right side of the page and moving to the left. The use of a mirror, and a reflection on everything, including oneself, became a leitmotif of his work.

“I say that when you are painting you should take a flat mirror and often look at your work within it, and it will then be seen in reverse, and will appear to be by the hand of some other master, and you will be better able to judge of its faults than in any other way.” — Leonardo’s notebooks

• He was a great advocate for pause and pivot. For him, the reflective part of his practice, the study part, the evaluation part took almost as long, if not longer than the actual doing. That habit had a darker side, too: Many got frustrated with him because of his approach to work — he picked up many things but then would abandon some in favour of what he deemed as more interesting, more worthy of exploration (hi, design generalists!) He wrote a lot about the need for taking distance from whatever is it that one is creating, to reach better outcomes.

“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.” — Leonardo’s notebooks

While you reflect on these two habits worth considering, it’s time for my second story, about a third habit (or a skill, if you like).

Designers who are just starting on their weird and wonderful craft path, this one is for you. When Filippo Brunelleschi was born, the main Cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria Degli Fiori, stood dome-less for about 80 years with no resolution in sight — no one could think of a solution that would work to build a dome of this size. Brunelleschi studied to be a goldsmith and sculptor, not an architect. He was also (in contrast to da Vinci) a very secretive man and has not left us a great deal that helps to decipher him and his ways about the craft. At the age of 23, he had competed for the sculptural composition on the doors of the baptistery (a prestigious project in the main square of Florence), losing painfully close to his rival, Lorenzo Ghiberti. It was only then he decided to focus on architecture. He entered the competition to complete the dome, with no formal training or experience. Legend has it he had no plans to show the adjudicators— a newbie, competing for the most prestigious project of the city.

He surprised the judges with a challenge, asking them to balance an egg on one end. After each of them failed, Brunelleschi took back the egg and brought it down onto the tabletop with just enough force to impact the shell at one end, effectively flattening the small air space within it so that the egg stood stable and upright.

The panel dismissed his little trick, claiming that any one of them could’ve done that! Brunelleschi pointed out that, nevertheless, not one of them had. They were surprised [or impressed] enough to give him a shot. So he has started building the Dome and completed the project within 16 years. He’d discovered how parabolic curves distribute force tangentially, giving such forms powerful load-bearing properties.

For more fascinating insight on the building works of the largest brick dome in the world, I recommend “How an amateur built the world's biggest dome”.

So next time someone tells you “this has never been done before”, or that years of experience really matter when it comes to brilliance, think about Filippo. And how important it is to have a strong narrative to support your pitch, ideally with a reveal/demonstration that triggers thoughts.

A word on the most useful habit of all: curiosity

Florence is pure inspiration. From the flood marks on every wall, reminding us how fragile is everything that we create (as some of the city parts are technically lower than the level of River Arno, flowing through the city, Florence gets flooded about once a century, much to the deep sadness of the inhabitants) to the newest urban artist studio with icon-like Clet Abraham, who transformed a large portion of the stop signs within Florence into opportunities (challenge yourself to spot some as you move around).

From the San Minato al Monte lovingly overseeing the city to the unapologetic Buchette del vino where the wine used to be sold to the passers-by directly through the building walls within the narrow streets, the city is so densely full of history. There are so many more stories beyond the few I’ve told you and there’s an immense curiosity to be exercised to uncover those.

“Seeing is one of the quickest actions the one can take,” Da Vinci wrote in his notebooks. Inspiration is often a direct outcome of that. And if you’ve noticed something new about the city you’re in today, my work here is done :)

All comments left here will reach me, Aleks Melnikova, founder of Cosmic Velocity. Come to us for good design, inclusive research and team training.

Habits of great artists worth adopting was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There’s nothing better in this world than a good conference happening within unique cultural context. So when I first heard of someone who decided to put the two together — Thailand, land of the temples, fascinating history, delicious food, the “land of the free”; and the field we’re all work in, Design (in one shape or the other), all there was left to do was to buy a ticket, and that’s exactly what I did. Here goes a quick sketch of what was two days filled with listening, thinking, talking and doing.

Melissa Perri “Escaping The Build Trap”

Melissa was the first one of the day to raise a very important question of businesses designing what people asked for instead of understanding what they <people within businesses and people meant to enjoy the products> actually need, touching on the possible tools for the job, such as product strategy canvas and the product kata. She covered a lot of great ground — from looking at strategy not as wishlist of features or a plan, but a flexible framework allowing people to make decisions; to core process aspects involving learning and organisational setup, with the role of CPO (Chief Product Officer) as the conduit of great [product] leadership focussed on outcomes.

Yvonne Tse “Research in VR”

Yvonne’s material was a profound delight for any researcher thinking of using VR and the oppotunities and considerations that this kind of research brings when reconstructing restrictive environments such as airports and high security / high risk areas. A lot of considerations come with the freedom to model multi-varied environments, including how variations in fidelity affect perception and whether it’s worth co-inhibiting the virtual space alongside the participant or staying the ‘voice behind the scenes’.

Dana Chisnell “Democracy Is A Design Problem”

Dana’s talk made me acutely realise how many biases we still possess around most processes in our lives, strating from the basic “everyone knows where to find this therefore has access to this therefore is able to read this” assumption. It also made me think about how important the understanding of complex processes that underpin any modern society striving to be democratic and inclusive is, note how different those are in every country, and how seemingly small design victories require systematic and constant design change.

Liam Hutchinson “Everyone Is A Designer”

What does it take to deliver amazing customer service, or rather, how many of us, and who “us”? I really love real-life design stories and when I heard Liam’s croissant journey I couldn’t help but enjoy the way of exploring the intricacies of the system / service through a journey of the artefact. Definition of a designer as “someone who can impact the rendering of intent” in the age of organisations being the constraints resonates extremely well with the challenges a lot of us face on daily basis.

LIGHTNING TALKS

Elena’s talk on UX debt, reasons behind it and the ways to tackle it, Chusek’s reflections on the expectations around super apps as well as Boonjira’s beautifully playfull rendition of the shapes of UX designer and their (our) vastly varied skillsets — three speakers created a nice sequential narrative from “why” to “how” to “by whom”.

John Cutler “How to not exchange waterfalls for whirlpools”

The name of John’s talk brought a “I’ve lived through this” kind of smile on my face, as there’s no better definition <than whirlpool> for some projects I’ve seen following the wildfire of agile methodology spreading without much thought and consideration behind its meaning and purpose, instead of blindly following its shape and mechanics. Raise hands people who also felt sucked into a blackhole of delivering features on top of features on top of more of them? John talked about getting rid of craft silos, and redesigning the organisations to support design, not inertia.

Jared Spool “The Evolution of a New UX Design Resolution”

Jared Spool is an absolute treat to watch and listen to. A fascinating dive into missile alert mistake, using fishbone analysis to investigate cause and effect, covering all the levels the assumptions were made on — from screen level thinking, to application level thinking, to organisation level thinking and ultimately ecosystem level. The parallels he drew with the maturing of digital world per se, highlighting using different tools to operate within those four different resolutions make you question yourself “why haven’t I connected this in my head?” Closing the loop opened by multiple speakers before him, Jared’s talk made me think about the importance of governance, a single decision as a design act, the ownership and the choice of intent.

Bonus 1: Remember Kano model?

That model that you wanted to use but couldn’t quite get your head around? Well “Design for delight” workshop was just that — a day of playing with it (designing within it), guided by Dana Chisnell and Jared Spool. First of all, the model itself is a great tool to measure the impact of design, to design for people’s expectations and to understand how to progress with providing people real value from interaction with services, as opposed to producing a business-driven set of features. Dana’s dimensions of pleasure, flow and meaning made designing within this framework a lot clearer, as well as trigerred a lot of thinking and discussions around the ‘basic expectations line’ and how contextual those are, how dependent on our backgrounds, our environment, our history.

Personally, I haven’t tried ‘inverting’ the intent or designing the worst possible experience for people to then make it better, the “despicable design process”, before, and found it extremely efficient in removing the confines within specialisms and enabling people to design positive solutions on the spot. Also, there’s an awesomely detailed write-up (and draw-up) of this workshop here, by Vichita Jienjitlert.

Bonus 2: UX of Loha Prasat, the “Iron Castle”

Bangkok has over 1000 temples, it’s nearly impossible to see all of them. One has stood out for me, for very geeky, experience-related reasons, which I will inevitably share. Loha Prasat, also called the iron temple, has 37 black metal spires, representing 37 virtues that are required to reach enlightenment. Those same virtues are described on the walls within the temple space.

You experience the building in stages: at the ground floor level you find a great number of columns that create a labyrinth-like environment, where the small meditation cells for the monks are located. Second floor presents itself as a space for walking meditation (there’s less space). Third floor is a space for seated meditation (even less space). Fourth is the relicts, and the place to kneel to look at them — strictly few spots, facing both sides of the temple (I’m pretty certain there’s a meaning behind the sides they are facing).
The space get’s concentrically smaller towards the last step of this well-designed thinking path.

Two takeaways, really:

a. Every philosophical system organises their spaces to reflect the practice and its values, in other words — content, content is important. Content and rules of it’s interplay is the heart of design.

b. The walk through the temple was a beautifully thought through and gradual experience of space, much like the conference, I thought. So much so that I wish we could cary some if this complex fluidity onto our process / artefact / service design or whatever is it that we do, constantly caring about both physical and emotional state of the traveller.

***
All comments left here will reach me, Aleks Melnikova, founder of Cosmic Velocity. Come to us for good design, inclusive research and team training.

UX & Thailand was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Concept 1. Early image manipulation

If you’ve ever considered photoshopping yourself into random environments, how about wanting to be captured within a historical artefact for years to come? This entertaining story starts at the most famous basilica of Italy, St Marks Cathedral, with it’s relict, Pala D’Oro, universally recognized as one of the most refined and accomplished works of Byzantine enamel, both sides decorated.

The two figures surrounding the Virgin are images of Doge Ordelaffo Faliero and Byzantine Empress Irene, the former seeming to be slightly off with his head too small in proportion to his body. There are many speculations on the subject, one of the more curious ones include the story around the original head being removed and replaced with a new one. Both scratches on the enamel and wax paste used to fill in the gaps where the replacement piece didn’t exactly fit could suggest the truthfulness of this hypothesis, allowing the whole range of jokes around medieval Photoshop to come into existence.

Concept 2. New face for a voice

City is full of masks, glaring at you with their empty eye sockets, eager to be filled by blissful tourists. Masks, those magic artefacts that used to protect their wearer’s identity during activities of all kinds.

I’ve always found this old, beautifully crafted and conveniently monetised tradition fascinating. It stems from the premise of making everyone equal, giving the voice to the speechless, isolating or reducing the channel of perception we are most used to for our snap judgement of the world — our vision that is.

Concept 3. City built by refugees

The first people to settle in the Venetian Lagoon were refugees from the nearby mainland, who lived happily in cities of the Roman Empire along the north-eastern shores of the Adriatic, interrupted only with its collapse and barbarians sweeping down from northern Europe.

Looking for a shelter where their enemies could not follow them, they, inhabiting 118 islands, unknowingly initiated the history of the capital of Veneto region, one of the greatest cities in the world.

Concept 4. Fear of emptiness

Venice is full of vastly decorated cathedrals, a breath of air wouldn’t get through the golden mosaics, so dense, the eyes start hurting after a while of exploring them. That over-saturation exists for a reason, that reason may be the concept known as “Paura del buio”, resulting in a belief that dense decorations won’t let the devil slip through the void, because no void is left unfilled. I’ll leave you to contemplate it, the fear of emptiness, the void, of the greatest opportunities that could ever be granted to us, exciting and terrifying at the same time.

Those are by far not the only four things Venice is wonderful for.
Take 400 bridges, thousands of arches, palpable silence and soft sounds of the permanent proximity of the turquoise lagoon, add history, decay, mystery, and, of course, love. You’ve got no excuse to miss it.

All comments left here will reach me, @alex_andr_a — Head of Experience Design (at POKE London), a bit of a book nerd, a metaphor addict and a decent wine lover. Thoughts my own, would love to hear yours.

1. Show up

Yes, the workload gets bad, yes we are all guilty. Large team, multiple project tracks, new business race. However, there’s no real excuse to neglect meeting your team for over a week. You wouldn’t do it to someone you care about, why would you do it to a team? Business caveat: if things really, really go wrong and you have to cancel, ‘reach out — reschedule in advance — apologise’ is a good sequence to go by. There are only a few things worse than an anticipated conversation moving further away right in front of your eyes.

2. Take it outside

This is one of the most important principles that continues to change my meetings a lot. For our last one-to-one with one of my brilliant designers, we strolled the streets finding ourselves in one of the best magazine shops in the area, I got to know she’s interested in landscape design and we had a great conversation about which music instrument to try and learn first with an owner, who kept pulling out magazines and inviting us to stay and read. I learned more in those 10 minutes than a couple of weeks of meeting her in the office environment. We also made a friend in the face of a friendly and knowledgeable shopkeeper. Change of the environment resulted in change in the conversation and dynamic.

3. Listen and take notes

This one is about avoiding immediate responses, listening in, reframing problems in “why do you think that is so” mode and getting to the bottom of what people think and feel. But how do I take notes whilst walking you say? Audio notes can do, just notes on your phone can do too. Once you’ve taken those notes though, that’s your responsibility to turn painpoints into actions and report on progress. Own it. Where I’ve seen this principle failing is where the discussion felt great, but no actions followed.

4. Use the time…

…to change course of meeting as you see fit: they said they don’t really know people? Take them around the office. Do stuff together — draw, discuss, share. In very large organisations (and whilst not working on projects together) that may be a rare opportunity you won’t otherwise get to work with someone amazing, however limited that time is.

Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Then why is it that every second person I meet in the industry either has a nonexistent support structure or is struggling through difficult work relationship? I’m still happily learning many aspects of looking after people, yet I truly believe one-to-ones are a part of establishing that support structure, moreover, meeting design is a design too — it’s a narrative, it’s a story. Let it be an engaging one where everyone is looking forward to the next episode.

***
All comments left here will reach me, @alex_andr_a — Head of User Experience (at POKE London), a bit of a book nerd, a metaphor addict and a decent wine lover. Thoughts my own, would love to hear yours.

Through the perfume-enriched halls of duty free, saturated with artificial smells (it’s impossible to breathe through), I’m strolling as quick as I can, out, out, towards the drunk-on-freedom wide wings and a bit of engine, and a bit of scare, and a bit of love yous in my head and a bit of let goes, always.

Made to pause at multiple screens, with people waiting impatiently, looking at the soon to be announced gates, I’m here watching them.
That kid being dragged by parents, hopelessly adjusting to their speed, I can feel your despair. That wife on the neighbouring table, dividing the table cloth with surgical precision and steel instruments to hand, I can sense the depth boredom, deep at the bottom of your eyes right there where retina caresses the optic nerve.

The gate is announced at 19.40.

A bit of a held breath, a loud exhale, burnt out grass pressed by a shadow of the plane being rapidly carried out of sight. Oat flakes of clouds travelling fast and stubborn, cattle free of border collies. Even through closed eyes, I sense the acutely orange sun slicing up the vast, bottomless air, to serve up on oval plates of our aluminium machine. How do you like your sky?

I don’t know who will I see this time, I have no idea what I’ll learn. The travel book is squashed in between my lenses in the small black bag, for to see is to capture. There are cathedrals, monasteries, towers, colours, tight streets, water for as far as meets the eyes. Or at least I remember so. City will inevitably stamp, or better yet, sew something into me, like a skilful tailor, hopefully it knows legs from hands, otherwise it could patch up my breathing channels.

Buildings play.

The moment you choose sides on a narrow path, street, or a wider than life Avenida da Liberdade there will be another house calling out to you, from across the street. They will talk to each other, leading you like a ping pong ball, in an old game, from the statue of Marquis of Pombal (amongst many achievements, the first to attempt an objective scientific description of the broad causes and consequences of an earthquake), till you reach the river, which looks and feels like the sea for it is vast.

You will most certainly feel the urge to rise to the highest point to try and make sense of this maze. Once in and out of ‘cold and hot fountains’, you will linger on top of Sao Jorge castle for a while: only from up above the rules will start to make sense to you, as you compose your mapless strategies.

What you will also see is the simple life in old decaying houses, with large trees shedding lemons to lay rotten on the ground, overgrown bus stops grinning knowingly at you, who knows where would you be taking one of those, would you, routes forgotten, never known to a foreigner, you are one.

Characters lurk.

And it’s not only about this lady here, her face like a world map of every emotion she’s ever felt, lips pressed together, hiding a warm smile, hands knowingly conducting a beautiful performance, that will, perhaps, result in margnificent, crunchy choriso bread.

But also a young, olive girl in white long robe, helping her father, the butcher, run the shop, observing the street, meeting my gaze with hunger, hunger of things she won’t yet see. Chains, a cheesy doorway decoration, runs down her hair and makes a sound, when touched by the wind.

Or a boy in a room of an intensely blue, ceramic building, drawing a marine landscape — concentrated, head almost sweating below the hairline, curls, maybe moorish, brush slowly, repeatedly touching the canvas. Pressed by a tough, multilayered competition here, Fado Vadio. I want to tell him how beautiful his work is, although I can’t see the painting and he can’t see me.

Or take tanned guides on boats, sculpted by salty winds of the lagoon, making legends on the spot and every legend has love, as it should, and some lagoons are meant to rest, and some to listen to the sound of the endless waves.

Walls cradle.

The sand color, gradually decaying into black, restating the idea of the forced and fortified gathering, the city. Indented and sanded out, sometimes touched by ancient battles, sometimes preserved in an understated grandeur, sometimes in overstated. Bound together by stone ropes, like the Chapter House Window in Tomar by Diogo De Aruda, infested with mould, painstakingly yellow.

You tell me what will our legacy be, when we don’t make clay pots anymore, neither we build for decoration, or elaborate ceremonies, or deep awe. Successors have almost no chance of decoding us. After all, maybe we are entirely transitory, the bridge between the grand past and the unthinkable future.

Although wait. Wind turbines. Grandiose, like modern churches, yet moved by the most changing, the least tangible of substances. Their powerful, hypnotic movements work like a watch of psychiatrist, mimicking a pendulum in front of a motionless patient. Maybe those will be left. Now your eyes slowly close, and you dream of corn fields they rise upon, glossed with the deepest green you can find on this planet.

Music carries.

Carries through and carries away. Wonderful music from afar, the best kind. Someone shyly testing out the violin on the last floor, the sound first hits the leisurely feet on the top balcony, they wave in tact, relaxed conductor, letting us know the rhythm, dad doing “shhh” to a little boy who started chatting and broke the magic for an instant, it’s all restored now, the ball bounced off the arched walls, hitting the birds, and they, in turn, produced their own, abrupt sound, melodic and sweet, palpably red and warm, like papaya flesh.

Melody in squares and passages, dispersed and thick at times, at others thin like a necklace, unavoidable like medieval costumes at a midnight fair in Obidos (pronounced with a long shhh at the end), where red skirts flare, young, beautiful, jumpy, firing the crowd and there soon is no-one left standing, we all succumb to the wave of dance, passing through the crowd as a massive, joined up, endless serpent, swallowing a new bystander everytime they get in the way. Limestone and marble inflate the smiles, fire lights up the furthest corners of the square swollen with pre-sunset glow.

Travel with no map, for the places will show you exactly what they want to, that turning out to be exactly what you love. Travel light. Travel.

***

To read the first part of this, go here.
All comments left here will reach me, @alex_andr_a — Head of User Experience (at POKE London), a bit of a book nerd, a metaphor addict and a decent wine lover. Thoughts my own, as it tends to happen. Would love to hear yours.

I’ve now switched work models for a privilege of heading up an amazing team of designers, but here go the main lessons I’ve learnt in the past 3 years of consulting businesses, large and small, on the matters of experience design.

1. Being all ears pays off

Active listening, passive listening.

First meeting with a client is best if it resembles a therapy session. You’re the therapist. If you, in any way, make it about yourself, you will pay for it later. Works exactly like asking leading questions in interviews — very little useful insight being drawn when this happens.

However, after a fair bit of listening, do trust yourself to try and pinpoint your worries, problematic areas, areas of concern for both you and the client. Discover them early.

2. Managing expectations is vital

You are a business now.

The main currency in the business world is the one of reputation. In order for that to be strong, do yourself a favor: be crystal clear about your level and what would you like to do. It’s only fair to make your skillset and your desires around working environments and projects clear at the initial stage, so that it leaves the client in a good position to determine whether you are what they need right now and/or is that the right time for you to come in.

Second step of this process is defining your scope. Things that you are and are not going to impact, deliverables they are and are not going to get.
A little bit like being a good PM, going for detailing your processes, outputs and desired outcomes certainly helps to manage expectations. Timings and building in contingency matters too.

3. Looking at the full picture is crucial

Low situational awareness is no soil for good design.

You could ask many questions before your project kicks off (or if you join the existing project). If you are unsure where to start, I always start with these four:

BACKGROUND (context)
Why is the project happening now (what’s the trigger for it)?
Who is paying for it?
Who are the key stakeholders and what are their stakes?
How do they envisage success?
How can they describe failure?
Who are their perceived and real competitors?

PEOPLE (audiences, clients, collaborators)
Who are we designing for?
What are their current behaviours?
How have they been studied (any existing research)?
How we would like people to feel when they are interacting with <this>?
What’s the client team like?
What are their goals?
What are their processes like?
How can they support and maintain whatever you design?
What’s the overall business maturity around research, ux, design (read: how much additional time would you need to factor in for presentations and education pieces?)

STRATEGY (where are we aiming)
What does the business model look like?
How does experience strategy complement business strategy?
What’s our vision?
How do we get to this vision?

RESOURCES (what is available to us)
What do we have to work with — any existing assets, legacy systems, pre-determined, unmovable monoliths?
How do we overcome obstacles when we face them?
Who’s responsible for content, where is it coming from?

4. Not discarding work is smart

Two (thinking) heads are always better than one.

It took me personally (an artist by first degree) a long time to stop seeing every input by another agency as “oh whatever, we have our own process anyway”. Truth is you have an advantage here: someone has already spent time with the client, good chance is asking similar questions and raising similar concerns. They throught about it, produced certain artefacts (decks, scamps, ideas — you name it), and even if you don’t fully agree with the approach or the methods, it’s still worth investing time in mapping out the areas you can use.

What do you do when the input does not feel good? Well…like in user journeys. There are painpoints and then some real blockers, that stop the user from proceeding. Likewise here, is there anything that will stop you being able to do your work? Treat the work that have been done prior to the superstar of you rocking up as you’d like your work to be treated in the future — with respect at the least.

5. You will be given what you’ve asked for

Or, in other words, be careful with what you wish for.

At some point prior to having embarked on my contracting journey, I was getting a lot of: “are you sure you want to do this? All you will be hired to do is execution. Freelancers are brought in to extinguish fires”. However, I continued leading teams, developing relationships, managing programmes of work and gaining a lot of very valuable lessons and experience in the process.

The way you position yourself, and the kind of work you accept and reach for, enables you to create opportunities of your own. Sometimes it is a waiting game, but it starts defining you as much as you define it. So if you feel the balance of what you’re doing is leaning towards things you don’t enjoy doing, stop and think — what makes you happy? How do you need to change your current approach to work to accommodate that? Strategise yourself, starting from vision, to goals, to methods — as you would do a project.

And go for it. For courage moves mountains.

***

All comments left here will reach me, @alex_andr_a —Head of User Experience (at POKE London), a bit of a book nerd, a metaphor addict and a decent wine lover. Thoughts my own, as it tends to happen. Would love to hear yours.

The more you progress, the more elaborate the pain becomes. Now that you’ve made it through the woods of experiences and burns, some wins some losses, building practices and growing teams, all in all you know how to deal with that pain well — the responsibility of team climate and team wellbeing lays on your shoulders. You’re a parent now, only it’s harder than quadruplets: it’s a mix of sensitive designers, strategists with permanently embedded business hat, interaction specialists who mainly want to focus on interface, architects who worship gods of rational, developers who feel that every of the above people are making their lives unnecessary hard. The beloved (and complex) team family.

And every time any of them would encounter a named design frustration, or pain, they would (break down to pieces) rant, and rant breeds more rants, much like yawning, only that yawning doesn’t lead to team morale reaching it’s critical low. So I felt I needed tools to turn rants into other types of reactions, giving people tools (positive examples) of how those situations can be dealt with.

After having, for a while, observed the immaculately controlled faces of Heads Of and Directors across the rooms, listening to clients ordering the pizza of design trying to make sure anchovies don’t cost them extra, it dawned on me that a light-touch research project may begin to answer to the need my teams have for anti-frustration weapon in their hands — here are the people who had to deal with lots of stuff throughout their career, let’s ask them.

So one day like a real Sherlock at heart I asked them I said hey. What’s the most common (and worst, in your opinion) frustration you have encountered across your long-spanning and fulfilling careers, how have you dealt with that, what would your advice be dealing with that. And (across the disciplines) the 3 things they said were…

TERRITORY: “Just do your thing within that box”

Some constraints contribute to the overall greatness of outcome, others less so. Say there’s this client of yours determined to precisely define your playing field. It can sound variations of “just do this bit here”, “you don’t need to worry about overarching service”, “we want to focus on x” and so on. Firstly, ask yourself why: did they have a negative experience in the past, do they have limited budget (and why), where do they see the importance of this project in the grand scheme of things. Chances are every limitation has an internal reason, and more you understand the metrics that your client’s team is measured on, more you can help them achieve what they want, further out of a forced box you will get. Being inclusive of your audiences — ALL of your audiences — is important.

RULE: ‘’We all know who’s the boss here’’

Let’s face it, some relationships are simply abusive, and the cashflow should be no excuse. As an agency, the only real value we sell is the value of the thinking, if the client doesn’t see it as a part of the deal, the relationship becomes pretty autocratic in short timespan. Let’s try to turn negatives into positives though — is there anything good you (personally) can learn from this project or programme? Are you growing as a person facing challenges? If you keep banging that drum of yours with different levels of frequency but the other side stays as response-less as ever — remember, the only things you can actively change is your side of things. It’s a learn, fight or make a different choice (and leave if necessary) situation. Design is being comfortable dealing with constant shift and helping others to do so, and if you don’t feel comfortable with those kind of challenges chances are you may be at the wrong place doing the job that may not be right for you.

METHOD: “Going back to the start”

Questions of science, science and progress. Alike in Stockholm syndrome, your client develops romantic attachment to good old methods — they don’t admit it, but as soon as your foot is out of the door they are back to a literal square one, slightly diluted by the shiny beacon of your ‘amazing user centric thing’ right in front of them, yet, every other design method seems cheaper so we are just maybe going to go with not too much testing this time, and I mean we already know what the customers want, right. It’s an important reminder for us that work doesn’t end where it seems to end — with the first release of the product or service. We as designers, affect the organisations we work with an many levels — cultural included— whether that was intended as a part of the project scope or not. So it’s our job to take care of the seed after it’s been planted in the soil and do not expect it to grow miraculously. This also means taking care of your maintenance agreements and not treating anything that comes post-launch as an afterlife: it is very much present, very much shaping the future.

I bet many of you recognised your own frustrations here for those are as common as cold. More it hurts, more we grow, or at least I hope it to be so. If you did not have enough of (mainly 90s) music references yet, we could end this on “I recommend biting off more than you can chew to anyone, I certainly do”.

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All comments left here will reach me, @alex_andr_a — an Experience Design Director, a bit of a book nerd, a metaphor addict and a decent wine lover.
Would love to hear your thoughts.

In our digital bubble, with memory being washed by the newsfeed oceans daily, and taken in deeper and deeper, sand grain to sand grain, it’s so easy to lose touch with stuff. I’ve been guilty of that too, guilty of that on a daily basis.

But I recently had a moment where digital sea has taken away the sacred. I call this the Fahrenheit 451 effect.

During a brainstorm I floated an idea that instead of usual gold-silver-bronze type of tier system we’d propose a system based on famous travellers. So that we start from the ones who travelled moderately, or maybe just wrote about travels (assign this archetype to people with bronze) and move into the tycoons of chartering the unchartered for the analogy of platinum level in whatever-service-that-was-in-travel-sector-so-really-relevant.

I said…
Amerigo Vespucci
(Blank stare)
Marco Polo
(Still blank)
Christopher Columbus
(Ah yes yes that one maybe)

And I’m still not too sure whether the allusion to Colombia or Columbina played its part in the recognition.

I truly miss long lost childhood friends of mine, large heavy books on the shelves ready to open anytime to show unexplored lands, courtesy of the gentlemen mentioned above, people who conquered oceans and lands that seemed as vast as they seemed infinite, with no fear and holding back. Like us, digital architects, at an inception of the new website build. No fear whatsoever. Only they didn’t have templates.

So I said hell with it, what are nights for. Let’s launch a mini traveller series, with a bitesize story about each. I also want to discover some women travellers, unjustly misrepresented through the (whole) history of (travel-related) achievements, busy with kids and trivialities. Who’s with me?

Here’s your first:

Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512)

Florence born explorer who invented an accurate method of determining longitude, and has not one but two continents named after him.
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All comments left here will reach me, @alex_andr_a — an Experience Design Director, a bit of a book nerd, a metaphor addict and a decent wine lover.
Would love to hear your thoughts.

As a designer, someone who’s job it is to actively attempt changing the reality we are living in, I can’t help but dream of a better one. Reality where people voluntarily give their time to help each other, reality where they are somewhat caring, somewhat kinder. So I’ve been toying with an idea with ‘Good deed as a currency’ for a while now: I wanted to develop something that people would find useful, but instead of asking them for a remuneration for my time, I wanted their appreciation to be expressed in the time that they would give to a worthy cause of their own choice.

The opportunity presented itself when I was picking up long-forgotten tools and trying illustration: I’ve sketched-out a few alphabet posters: in English and Russian for now. They are available to download, print, use it in any other ways people (mainly parents of toddlers) see fit.

In return, I’m asking people who decide to download this to invent their own good cause: do something good today. It could be anything from being kinder to someone to spending screen-free time with their children or donating to a charity of their choice.

So that this place gets a bit better, in this case, one (illustration) download at a time. www.goodvibesabc.com

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All comments left here will reach me, @alex_andr_a — an Experience Design Director, a bit of a book nerd, a metaphor addict and a decent wine lover.
Would love to hear your thoughts.

Good Vibes ABC was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

So I had a bit of an operation recently (you may imagine me wrapped in bandages as we speak). And because most of the things happening in my life in one or other way bring my thoughts to what I do and love (design that is), I thought this experience would be fun to share.

So it started from…

A lot of paper

Forms to prove you’re serious, forms to hold less responsibility, forms for everything. Forms covering my family’s medical history from the Palaeolithic era to now and subsequently filling me in with knowledge on Hepatitis, Yellow Fever and ‘do you drink more than two glasses a week ‘ — well, when you put it like this I feel like shamelessly lying to you, paper.

A lot of examination

Then the games begun, and for about 4 hours we were thoroughly examined to make sure the surgery can be performed. It’s worth to say every doctor visit was a bit of a gamble, so roommate and I made bets on who’s coming in next and what exactly are they going to do to us.

Specialist visit

The specialist visit deserves a special mention because it was remarkable. A gentleman entered the room announcing himself with cheerful “Does-everyone-know-what-we-anaesthesiologists-do” in a mix of army/school-like manner. “Yes? Great. Then it’s much easier to explain. I’m going to put a needle in your vein, and you are going to have a nice sleep. And when you wake up all is good again”. My roommate murmurs “Why don’t you keep us this way for longer, doctor” which is met with “because there’s a line of people queueing for the experience, love”.

But the true marvel is a document he leaves behind. It starts with the divinely intellectual text “Ancient Greek ἀναισθησία (anaisthēsía), from ἀν- (an-, “not”) with αἴσθησις (aísthēsis, “sensation”) is a state of temporary induced loss of sensation or awareness” and rapidly deteriorates from there listing every possible way to make you insensitive to pain; the possible consequences of lightening your burden which is directly proportionate to the size of the intervention, and a list of unwanted consequences that may accompany it.

Over 4 pages in total.

Both of us shed a tear by the end of it and kind of wish we hadn’t read that, seriously considering making a rope out of blankets and leaving the building via the window.

The thing itself

The nurse enters ever so rapidly (that knock that doesn’t signify permission, only an entry warning), asking me to change into operation clothes and lay on the bed. I understand why I can’t walk to the theatre when I put those on: here I am in a ridiculous gown open at the back for anyone to whiteness my lovely see-through garment. At this point I’m feeling pretty helpless as these Amazonian healthcare workers roll me our and mention, ‘keep your hands close to your body so we don’t bump your limbs off the corners of the corridor’.

As long as the lift and corridor last, they keep quiet, silently acknowledging the meaningfulness of that ritual, and blood cooling fear starts to dawn on me because that scene in any medicine-related movies, as we all know them, is always followed by ‘we’re losing him’.

The corridor abruptly ends spitting me out into a massive room full of devices and people. Nurses say ‘good luck’ and disappear whispering “even I’d be scared if they were to do anything to me” (THANK YOU).

By which point I shake and hold the tears back (firmly, with both hands). The nurse remarks ‘don’t tremble that much’ while wrestling my hands down to measure my blood pressure (surely it’s going through the roof) and put a catheter in me.

I recognise the eyes of the doctor over one of the masks as he approaches saying “How are you feeling? Scared? That’s only human.” I look at the back of the room and then the room blurs into a single large orange spot… I wake up in an intense care unit in a very blissful mood, feeling like if somebody punched me in the face I’d just smile in return. The bliss continues until the painkillers wear out.

An open (design) question

What am I on about here, besides trying to be funny?

Hospitals (as systems) tend to morph over time: new treatments and regulations come out and it’s vital that we keep systems true to who they were designed for and are aimed at serving on the first place — humans.

So, coming back to the single and scariest moment that happened to me on the way to operating theatre, coupled with the first few seconds on the table — how could it have been solved?

Whether it is allowing me to walk there and having a changing room next to the operating theatre (service solution), or giving a note of warning and encouragement, something along the lines of “You may feel anxious in the corridor prior to operating table, but fear not, etc.”(experience solution) or “once at the theatre, look at this funny thing on the wall and smile” (yes, grown ups need these kind of things too!) or in any other way — there are multiple answers. The point is acknowledging what the problem is, not that I don’t know the ancient greek for anaesthesia.

Beyond anything — any service journeys, any touch points, designing for emotion, I’d argue, is one of the most important ‘lenses’ to consider when our systems grow and expand, bursting with processes and paper. More specifically designing for the single (most horrifying) emotional dip that no one accounts for, but everyone feels.

Now this dip may happen at different points of the journey for different people, this is where we need the understanding of the system users and accounting for their previous experiences as well as their current state.

I’m sure that, with purposeful design firmly and consistently entering all the systems we grow (and we grow with), one day our process will not diminish but highlight amazing jobs done by people. Because anyone who is capable of fine-tuning and fixing the beautifully complex thing that is the human body deserves the highest praise and the best designed system.

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All comments left here will reach me, Aleks Melnikova, founder of Cosmic Velocity. Come to us for good design, inclusive research and team training.

Design for emotions was originally published in theuxblog.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.