{"id":198,"date":"2024-01-14T15:22:01","date_gmt":"2024-01-14T15:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nua-ux.design\/mara-wall\/blog\/?p=198"},"modified":"2024-02-18T15:00:26","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T15:00:26","slug":"week-of-jan-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nua-ux.design\/mara-wall\/blog\/uncategorized\/week-of-jan-8\/","title":{"rendered":"week of jan 8"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A whole three weeks over holiday has flown by. I started it by telling myself that I would be doing an hour of work per day while in Italy to keep things fresh. Guess what? That didn’t happen – and probably for the best. Instead, I disconnected from my computer and watched how the world works. I noticed some frustrations (why does google maps often give a route that is way less efficient than others?), some beauty (italian people really know how to interact in the moment with their friends) and a lot of large hand gestures in the South contrasted by frowning faces in the North.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You didn’t think you’d get an update about my vacation, did you? There’s a UX point to it: Venice. By far my favourite city and not for the reasons a “typical” tourist would say (what even quantifies a typical tourist)? Venice was my favourite because of the undeniably complexity: on and off the island. How it started as and still is a case study for man and nature interactions (is there ever a winner?), the booming tourist market despite overtourism calls and actual venetians being pushed off the island, the construction of areas off of the island to send “unwanteds” in history, the representation of the anthropocene, the construction of ramps for high tides, the streets where no cars can go and can often end for no reason, the idea of a new and old world, the romanticisation (but why?) of a city surrounded by and infused with water… Venice is simultaneous stuck in the past and predicting the future. I observed how people moved around: tourists, workers, unhoused, people who I can only assume live there. The first night we got in, we decided to go over at 8pm and explore Venice after dark. Foolishly, we thought we would be able to see <\/em>it, but climate change reminded us otherwise: the air quality was so terrible that it was miraculous seeing even fifteen feet in front of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My holiday also reminded me to reflect on balance, and in regards to UX I am often confronted with how my personality feels clashing to the industry. I am (surprisingly) a pretty offline person. I leave my phone at home. I have a lot of hobbies that pull me away from screens instead of into them. With taking this holiday, I felt shameful that I wasn’t working every day like I said I would. Yet it brought back into focus why I love UX: the user, and the experience. The person, and the moment. It’s important to dive back into the physical world and notice how others move about in ways that are different than our own. Especially if that can be done by observing another culture! I now have moments to reflect on (as I journal every day while on holiday) and memories to dissect of how my experience faltered, could have been better, what I observed of others, and the state of the world (through a new place). With that being said, I came up with about 12 new apps\/websites that I imagined as useful based on interactions I had or saw. Like I said, a reminder of balance. Often times great ideas come when we aren’t focused on finding them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, I was ready to return to Norwich (now accepted as home) and get back to routine. I arrived Saturday. Since Monday I have been deep in the uni-submission-looming-project-finishing world. It’s exhilarating and anxiety provoking and a bit daunting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday I started running with the essay. I had a few ideas, but landed on meditation apps. I explored this monday, landing on how they use stats and milestones to encourage users to keep a consistent practice (and draw them back to the app, surprise again). Some had implemented the concept of a today page, recommending certain meditations and providing updates for the moment you log on. This sent my thoughts over to daylist, a weeks-old implementation on spotify that provides you with a constantly changing, cheekily named personalised playlist taking in to account the day, what you normally listen to around that time and a myriad of other features. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That thought led me off into the world of AI, NLP, Data-driven personalisation and how users can feel comforted or alienated by a playlist that reads their likes\/taste\/emotions\/desires correctly or incorrectly, respectively. Thus, my research paper took a totally different turn and I am enthralled with it. I have been wanting to explore AI further, and the case studies I’ve chosen show a vast difference in it’s use for large companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside the research paper I have continued to edit project four. As I worked on this Tuesday, I saw a big learning moment from last semester (that I think I’ve identified before, but it resurfaced). Coming from a publishing, visual first background into a research driven, proof backed practice is tricky. I definitely prioritised making the visuals nice right away (after doing a little bit of research), but coming back I’ve noticed massive lacks or inconsistencies in the actual work. The idea is there, the visual identity is sort of made, but the actual … bulk is missing. I am a self-admitted perfectionist, and getting caught up in these visuals was my downfall. Luckily, I feel coming back renewed from a break has shown me that I need to simplify, focus on getting key aspects fleshed out and adding flourishes at the end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, taking a break to look at the world made me reconsider what I am doing, why I am doing it and what influence I want to have. It showed me the influence those in class are having and how my own path is similar or different. It made me deeply consider what part about UX is special to me<\/em> and where I want to focus my mind. It hasn’t changed much, really, but it’s nice to have some hindsight of what happened in a1 and how that may or may not have reflected it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here’s to a month of head in the computer with scheduled breaks to make sure I stay balanced. I’m still so pleased to be here. It’s a real privilege to see and think about the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A whole three weeks over holiday has flown by. I started it by telling myself that I would be doing an hour of work per day while in Italy to keep things fresh. Guess what? That didn’t happen – and probably for the best. Instead, I disconnected from my computer and watched how the world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nua-ux.design\/mara-wall\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nua-ux.design\/mara-wall\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nua-ux.design\/mara-wall\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nua-ux.design\/mara-wall\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nua-ux.design\/mara-wall\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nua-ux.design\/mara-wall\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245,"href":"https:\/\/www.nua-ux.design\/mara-wall\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nua-ux.design\/mara-wall\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nua-ux.design\/mara-wall\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nua-ux.design\/mara-wall\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}