How did I explain what are UX and UCD to my mom?
We techies are all familiar with UX (User Experience) and UCD (User Centered Design), but to moms, it’s a whole new world.
Why did I choose my mom?
I was fortunate to be selected in UX academy in Wizeline academy, which was organized first time in HoChiMinh City, Vietnam.
In the first syllabus, students’ homework was to explain what UX and UCD are.
You should have a solid understanding of UX and UCD. Create a 5-minute presentation to explain UX and UCD to your peers (think of your friends, family, and co-workers who don’t know anything about UX and UCD).
That night, when we were eating supper, my mom asked me what kind of a course I were studying.
Needless to say, I immediately thought of the UX course. But, how could my mom understand what the UX is?
Analysis
First of all, I need to find some keywords in the question.
What are UX (User Experience) and UCD (User-centered design)?
You should have a solid understanding of UX and UCD. Create a 5-minute presentation to explain UX and UCD to your peers (think of your friends, family, and co-workers who don’t know anything about UX and UCD).
Then, I gave an answer to each keyword above in my mind.
(Q = question, A = answer)
Q: friends, family, and co-workers and don’t know anything about UX and UCD?
A: It’s my mom.
Q: User-centered?
A: Put her in the middle then allocating from her
Q: 5-minutes presentation to explain
A: The presentation should be short but impressive
“you have only one chance to impress everybody for the first time”
So, it’d be better for audiences if I make a hillarious presentation. I should make people laugh after a tiring working day. That would be highly appreciated.
Let’s start
I think a lot of examples/solutions.
First, I was thinking about telling my mom about the definition of UX (User experience). Obviously, the abbreviation of User Experience is UE, it is self-explanatory, but why everybody did not call like that?
After a quick search on Google, I found a temporary answer in:
- https://www.quora.com/Why-do-we-call-user-experience-UX-instead-of-UE
- https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/74778/why-do-we-say-ux-for-user-experience-rather-than-ue
The answer is that UX sounds better than UE …! Haha, so the answer was ambiguous and still a myth.
However, the example above was off-topic. I did not focus on my mom.
Then, I have a second thought in my mind. I should go back to my mom’s point of view.
I skimmed my lessons, and then found the definition of Experience; it could help me generate an ideas.
I looked at the circle of UX; every process is a circle around. So, I need to imagine something related
I remember that my mom likes Chinese historical movies, so I was going to interpret from it to UX.
Role Playing
“Mom, UX is you.”
“Me?” Mom said.
“Yes, it’s you, big momma.”
Imagine if you were an Emperor. So you had heavy responsibilities; you had to take care of many fields like
Land-ownership, warfare leadership, boosting the economy, law maker, takinge care lieges.
Some are good, some are bad but both of them give back to you a feeling of actions you did.
That is UX.
Please see picture below to understand my work.
Alright, I am going to the next part.
You were still an Emperor, mom. You did all things above were not alone. Many supporters will help you and loyal to you forever.
You were revolved around by a huge amount of subordinates who worked under your control. You are the best, the highest. Your subjects were under your command.
General: The army general in ancient Chinese military hierarchy was the officer who was responsible for supervision and training of army officers. The general was the topmost military rank of a division and was responsible for all the military operations of that division.
Eunich: A full males (i.e. those adult males who had not been castrated) were allowed to enter the private quarters of a ruler. They had unequaled opportunities to win the ruler’s favor. This was a source of recurring irritation for senior ministers and government officials, and a eunuch who gained such a hold over an emperor that he exerted real power over government earned their bitter resentment.
Empress (Emperor’s wife): The emperor’s wife had often been brought to the emperor’s attention by an already powerful family. Once such a family had one of its daughters firmly planted at the center of power, in a position, as a wife but even more so as a mother (empress dowager) of a young emperor, such families could gain a huge degree of power over the imperial court. They could have their members appointed to many of the topmost positions in government.
This led to intense power struggles between family-based factions, especially when one family was challenging another one (often when a young emperor was choosing a wife for himself). These struggles could end with the complete elimination of the defeated family, including distant relatives far from the court.
Strategist: Developed unique military theories that focused on psychological warfare — an innovative concept during a period when most militaries were generally focused on suppressing their enemies through overwhelming physical force.
Guardian: A garrison commander in the ancient Chinese military hierarchy was the in charge of a certain military facility and was responsible for the day to day operations of that facility
Credit
https://www.hierarchystructure.com/ancient-chinese-military-hierarchy/
All of them will help you and iterate their duties until you are happy. It is also a purpose of User-Centered Design
“Thank you for your listening, mom.”
The takeaway
What I learned
- Picked up the person to whom you think it is the hardest to explain. If you could do that, you might understand the problem very well and possibly teach everyone.
- Depend on the kind of presentation, try to add some humor to the presentation. Everyone loves the good laugh.
- Expand ideas from the keywords in the question. It helps you flip off the track.
The drawback
- I transferred my presentation verbally in a written way. So, the effect of funny things, facial expression, body languages, a tone will be valuable decreasingly.
- Difficult in finding the reading resources about Emperor, ancient China by English. In addition, Chinese history will be limited or misinterpreted in English
The missing part
- The full presentation lacked of 4 videos I made for example of UX and UCD. But it was received a still-not-good comment of disconnection from my instructor.
You can see these in this on Youtube:
In my opinion, I could replace 4 videos above by a short scene in Emperor film type
It is consistent in terms of we were in the role playing that I told my mom a story. As a narrator, I would point out the UX case in the film, then compare it to the definition of UX and UCD. Consolidated one more time and compared between by-image examples and definitions.
