On 26 April 2014, a number of international speakers from Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Australia and United States gathered together in Jakarta to share their expertise on various UX (User Experience) topics. There were eight talks in total during the event day and we are honored that Alvin, our co-founder of Netizen Testing, was also invited to share his experience on how to improve UX through user testing.
For those who missed the opportunity to attend the event, don’t worry. I will be sharing the snippets of some interesting topics presented on the event day.
UX in Asia & SIGCHI
by Prof Zheng Jie Liu
Prof Zheng Jie Liu came all the way from China, shared about his view on ‘the challenge of UX in China’. In terms of academia, there are always issues in publishing industrial journals for UX. Why? because it is not “scientific” enough.
What kind of scientific data they want from UX? Prof Zheng also wondered about it. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution in the UX industry. User behaviors and preferences are diverse culturally and geographically. No matter you are an expert or amateur in UX, UX is a non-stop learning process.
Prof Zheng made a great point that, in order to close the gap between academia and Industries, companies are recommended to work with universities to improve UX in our daily life. In addition, the result will be better if different organizations work together for a government research project. Eventually, it will help to raise the awareness of UX in the society.
*Note: Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) is the premier international society for professionals, academics and students who have the interest in human-technology and human-computer interaction.
*Click here to view the full research paper entitled “User Experience in Asia” by Prof Zhengjie Liu
Cross-Cultural Online Learning Experience
by Dr Eunice Sari
“iPad has becoming babysitter nowadays.” Dr Eunice amused the audience with her humor opening line. Meanwhile, it also made us curious why Dr Eunice said so?
Dr Eunice stated that technology has becoming increasingly prominent in children development. If you’re having your meal in a restaurant or walking in a shopping mall, try to observe the people around, you may notice that children are playing with phone or tablet. No matter what games they are playing, they are actually leaning something which may influence their development. Therefore, there are more and more UX design and development that focus on educational purpose. This type of UX is known as Learning Experience Design (LXD).
Dr Eunice also shared to us the eight main elements of LXD:
- Learning Object
- Educational Games & Simulations
- Learning Management Systems
- Synchronous Collaborative Learning Space
- Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS)
- Professional e-learning Courseware
- 3D Virtual Learning Environment (VLEs) – in another word, the Second Life. It is a 3D world to support learning of all types of subjects
- Mobile Learning
Before Dr Eunice ended her talk, she emphasized that “there are no one-size-fits-all solution”, just like what I’ve mentioned in the previous section. Therefore, UX is a jungle that you need to keep discovering, doing research, developing, and managing.
Responsive Design
by Adi Tedjasaputra
According to Google (2012), ‘90% of people move between devices to accomplish a goal, whether that’s on smartphones, PCs, tablets or TV’. Hence, Adi stated that DORA™ is something that needs to be considered when designing a website or app. DORA™ stands for “Design One, Run Anyway”, is a term created by Adi himself.
What is a responsive design? As stated by Wroblewski (2012), ‘responsive design enables Web page layouts to adapt to a variety of screen sizes. Adi shared with us the three main concepts in responsive design:
- Content Parity – Content doesn’t have to be uniform, but make sure it is consistent.
- Scaling – For example: on smaller screen, need bigger button
- Positioning – more examples on: www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1514
As a final remark of his talk, he stated that usability confines how good the UX is.Both usability and UX should not be separated.
Designing for UX
by Dr. Chee Weng Kong
“Usability is at the heart of the User Experience (UX)”, said Dr Chee. However, people have to acknowledge that UX is not User Interface. UX requires top-down support and implementation on a long-term basis.Dr. Chee mentioned that UX is not only about ‘Look’ & ‘Feel’, but also ‘Usability. User Experience resolves around these three areas.
He also shared with a chart that explained the process of user-centered design:
Kansei Engineering for E-commerce Sunglasses Selection in Malaysia
by Ashok Sivaji
When consumers are visiting E-commerce websites, they are unable to touch or feel the products. Hence, the product physical appearance becomes more important in their buying decision. Ashok stated that using Kansei Engineering, it helps to extract words that are mentioned by the users, in which will be categorized into four categories, such as aesthetic, physical, sensational and operational.
Kansei Engineering is used to describe people’s impression towards objects, surroundings, and situations. In addition, symmetric skills are applied to evaluate further, for example: Fun vs Not Fun. Web designers can use it as a guideline to design an e-commerce website that focuses on perceived trust and purchase intention based on Kansei Engineering
* Click here to view the full research paper entitled “Kansei Engineering for E-commerce Sunglasses Selection in Malaysia“ by Ashok.
HCI Practice in Malaysia
by Idyawati Hussein
Idyawati basically introduced two types of practice in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI):
– Explicit (obvious) = image, text, graph and etc
– Implicit (not obvious) = relationship between each element
Always remember the five key elements when designing HCI, in another term, the PACTnD: People, Action, Context, Technology & Design
Design Thinking
teleconference by Hao Dinh
Hao Dinh was unable to present at the event but he shared valuable insights on Design Thinking through teleconference.
Generally, there are 5 steps when it comes to applying design thinking methodology: Emphatize, Define, Ideate, Prototype & Test. (The last 3 steps are repetitive).
Feel free to to view his videos on Youtube Channel.
In a nut shell..
if you are new to UX, this event will definitely help you to understand more about the UX and it’s current state of application. This was the first UX conference organized by UX Indonesia, we wish all the best for their upcoming activities in the future. We also hope that through all of our effort, we can raise the awareness of UX in the society and create wonderful user experience.
See you guys again soon!
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