Feelin under the weather today. I might have pushed my body a little hard with the long days and uninterrupted staring at the screen. We are a pomodoro household, but I’ve been happily ignoring my timers, gritting my teeth and wanting this thing to be done today. Probably not the healthiest approach. Wish I could do it more low and slow, sometimes.
Adding things to my 100dod bucketlist. I don’t even know what design means to me. Have I mentioned that before? Part of this is going to be figuring this out. I hope it gets philosophical. I feel like I’ve got at least one post about the meaning of the word ‘design’ in me. uuu, also - affordances.
Researched frameworks that would allow me to implement Material Design in the Vue JavaScript framework
Ok, I’ve been feeling morose today. Or maybe just sad. (Morose sounds cooler tho.) So what I did is to just do a little progress on my projects, tick off some boxes, without expecting any Herculean working-hours from myself. Did the sadness go away? No. Did I check off some boxes? Heck, yeah. I finally announced this blog, for one 😌.
I can’t really say why I’ve been feeling sad, but it seems like a big sort of feeling. A mood? Something being digested, maybe. A friend left me a voice message talking about how doing computer work leaves him feeling soulless and zombified - that struck a chord. I watched a Youtube video talking about Travis Bickle’s lack of purpose - that struck another chord.
And then I read this article that just… ehm… well, I’m kind of figuring this all out as I’m writing.
In short, it kind of opened a new perspective of looking at UX for me. It resonated deeply and touched on issues that I’ve had from the very start.
Let me share the quotes that spoke to me:
The implicit promise of UX for many of us was a burgeoning philosophy of management by inquiry and insight, in which new creative explorations would lead to new questions about human behavior, which in turn would drive the definition of new product and value opportunities.
The culture of UX also seemed to necessitate a degree of respect, compassion, and simple humility toward the people who use what we make, and the ways in which their lives and experiences may shape their behavior to look very different from our own.
I think this summary brings out some of the core of what fascinates and inspires me about UX.
The disgruntlement seems to go up the longer someone has been in the field: The more seasoned and experienced a UX person is, the more likely they are to be asking whether realizing user-centered values is even possible under capitalism.
And this idea just hit the heart of the matter and really touched the heart of my discomfort with doing design (or any sort of work) in the context of working for a for-profit company.
I’m kind of excited to learn that some ppl in the UX community are sharing this discomfort and asking these fundamental questions.
But I also feel very muddy and, hm, overwhelmed and stuck because I don’t see a way out of the system, or out of this discomfort. Do I really wanna be spending x hours a day helping some company sell a product? Do I wanna interview ppl so I can get a better understanding of their behavior, so that someone (maybe even me) can find a better ‘value opportunity’?
When I think about such things, after about 10 minutes I often feel the urge to leave my design/programming/technology-related ambitions and go live in a cave.
