UX Lighthouse — Workshops, Mentorship, and Networking.
As the Community Advocate of FoF Pune and local lead of IxDA Pune, it was indeed a significant opportunity to collaborate as outreach partners.
UX Lighthouse is being built as a platform that brings together UX design professionals operating at different levels — from junior designers, to design managers, to design leaders and of course design entrepreneurs! This happens to be the first year of UX Lighthouse, with the theme –The Next 25 Years of UX Design.
Day 02 / Workshops
Data Therapy
This workshop was led by Ranjit Menon, and it explored on various ways of the good and bad, and everything in-between in this data-ful world. Plenty of examples and references on different ways data is collected and analyzed.
From privacy to policies, public data to designing regulations, and so much more under this umbrella of data. It was captivating to go through these case-studies and examples showcasing the spectrum of data being helpful and also harmful. That, that gray area, where it overlaps and balances off — is the silver-lining? Probably. To know all these things and realize how crucial role designers could play in shifting the paradigm (activist, we can be, I guess?); using data to make informed decisions. This workshop left me thinking on different possibilities and perspectives to perceive data.
And as the title says, therapy. It was time for— detox and de-cluttering. Ways we could incorporate to reduce or refrain from getting in the vortex of data-tsunami.
Are humans made of flesh and bones or 1s and 0s?
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Personally, I think, data in itself, is useless unless unified into a quantifiable information. For example, these three random sentences would mean nothing unless associated: I like apples. I like red color. I like fruits. Let’s say if I deduce it into: She likes fruits that are red in color, so that’s why she must like apples. Well, this could or could not be true, and it only gets apt by taking more data. DATA, DATA, and DATA: Feed it, and it will spit it out!
Crafting a UX Story World
This workshop was led by Anupriy Kanti, and it focused on the importance of storytelling in UX design. We learned how to create stories that are engaging and informative, and how to use those stories to connect with users on an emotional level.
UX as a discipline is in distress. Personas are losing the humaneness and look more templatized (UX — U = X; nng). Can storytelling save the day? Beyond format, framework, and function, it contextualizes, clarifies, and communicates. Introducing UX Story World framework. With references of the legendary Star Wars and Marvel Cinematic Universe, even going back to age old Panchatantra, how stories can be captivating by involving different sensory modalities.
Moving from an operative to a narrative approach, in the intersection of shifted lens, shared language, and streamlined logic.
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Major takeaway from this workshop: The importance of understanding the user’s story. Before starting to tell our own story, we need to understand the story of the user. This means understanding their needs, desires, and pain points.
The Art of Storytelling with Data Visualisation
This workshop was led by Rasagy Sharma, and it explored the use of data visualization to tell stories. We learned how to choose the right techniques, and how to create data visualizations that are clear, concise, and effective.
Presented with wide variety of examples and decoding the what’s and why’s of using the particular technique was insightful. Knowing what to ask is important when we want to learn what they are looking for (the art of asking/questioning? :D). Wrong data visualization technique can make it difficult to understand and interpret; which brings the need to create clear, concise, and effective ways that are easy to understand and communicate the message clearly.
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Rohan is a UX Lead and we paired up for the activity. At the end, I was surprised how much he had analyzed (about me, in a good way :D) from this one sheet. And I learned a lot from that brief interaction…
- all caps, spacing, bullet points / asterisk / arrows, brackets, layout, numbering, underline (highlight), side division, etc.
[P.S The sketchnote is artist’s impression of their understanding or thoughts scribbled as notes. Some element’s could be artist’s OG thoughts, some could be presenter’s direct words, some could be artist’s way of representing what presenter said.]
