I started writing this post a couple of times at various times, mostly as a rant. But today, today is the day! Today I won’t rant. I’ll just tell it how I see it, how it is.

Yes it can.

There are no two companies the same so there are no two team problems the same. But if you boil them down to the essence of the problem — they are. And their solutions are more or less tackling the same core issues. And so, some patterns arise. Patterns of problems :)

And to get to the best solution… you have to have…

Yup, my strange journey continues. Following Part 1 and introduction of why I’m doing this, here comes the next step. Maybe not as interesting, full of frustrations, but did lead me to the most interesting part of this research.

I wanted to see what problems have others identified and solved, maybe I missed something all along. I knew I want something for late teens to adults, for help gaining independence, education about the ‘real world’, empowering, socialising, job options etc combined with learning difficulties if not DS specifically.

And? I haven’t found what I was looking for, otherwise I guess…

To apply everything I know and do as a service designer… on my brother. On his life and interactions with the surrounding world. Sounds a bit mental, I know.

From 9 to 5, I look at the big picture, deconstruct it, analyse it and find out where we make regular people unhappy in the digital space. Either because they want to or they have to use a service or a product, we need to make sure they can use it. I unstuck people.

So I thought… I’d give this process a go applying it on something other than a service…

We all see them, get annoyed by them and if we’re in the industry, we even smugly point fingers. Hopefully we learn from them, not just: “look at this! I’m so much better than that”. Because we all made and still make mistakes. And probably still will.

1. Names & addresses

Everybody is going to write about Brussels, as everyone wrote about Pairs, as not that many wrote about Ankara, as way less wrote about a tragedy in my home country that changed a government. So I’m not going to write about Brussels, or Paris or Ankara. I’m just tired. Of all of it.

I’m tired of reading an article on facebook about a celebrity being publicly accused why she didn’t have an abortion when she knew she’ll give birth to 2 twins with down syndrome.

I’m tired of reading an article about how Siri is not prepared for crisis situations…

A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to be a part of a focus group for the product I was working at, targeted at young people — that’s the politically correct way to address this age group, or so I’ve been told. Led by Emily, the focus group was full of insights, but testing my app left me completely demoralised and somewhat confused.

Without further introductions, let me share 11 things I’ve learned user testing 11 year olds…

1. Young people have absolutely NO patience

“To start off, let’s all get up and play this…”

— was received with rolling eyes and mumbled “uhh, I…

So…what do you do?

*me a bit shy* I’m an ux designer…

…Aha… interesting…

This is where most people stop and because of the glaze over their eyes, I have a decision to make: either ask the question back (after 5 years of being in the UK I still haven’t learned that this is the 2nd go to topic, after the weather) or take the challenge and explain what is that U and that X…

A lot of times I tried to explain it in lots of words, examples, correlations and hand gestures, but the glaze was shinier than ever…